Spider Season (21 page)

I called the gallery and told them I represented Ismael Aragon, a prominent collector from Mexico City who was interested in Wu’s work. The manager said she was unfamiliar with Aragon and that the reservation list was limited to a select group of collectors, media, family, and close friends. When I told her that Mr. Aragon was in the United States on a “buying trip” and would be happy to spend some of his vast wealth at another gallery, she told me she thought she could squeeze in one more guest.

“Make it two,” I told her. “I’m Mr. Aragon’s close companion and interpreter.”

“Two then,” she said. “We accept Visa and American Express.”

*   *   *

Anticipating our Friday evening charade, I decided to treat Ismael and me to good haircuts. Not that I had much hair left to cut, but we’d be among the hoi polloi of the art world and I wanted to look my deceptive best. Ismael wasn’t keen on misrepresenting himself, but I convinced him it was for a good cause. Namely, my sanity.

“If I don’t get to the bottom of this Jason Holt business,” I told him, “I’m going to end up back on Prozac.”

Anyway, I added, he wouldn’t have to utter a single false word. I’d do all the talking, explaining that he spoke only Spanish.

“All you have to do is look rich,” I said, “and appropriately pretentious.”

We made appointments for our cuts at the Gendarmerie, a neighborhood spa that also offered facials, waxing, manicures, pedicures, massages, a haberdashery, tai chi classes, and enough high-end hair- and skin-care products to keep a pampered celebrity happy for several days. There was also a line of colognes for men and women, personally created by the owner, Topper Schroeder, which he sold at finer stores throughout the country.

All this was out of my range, of course, financially and philosophically. But I’d once done Topper a favor, tracking down an ex-employee of his who’d absconded with the spa’s computerized client list, and he’d treated me like a prince ever since. He’d insisted that I drop in any time I was in the mood for a complimentary hot stone or salt scrub massage, or one of the other treatments provided by his cordial staff. He promised me that a good rub with hot stones and warm oil would open up my “energy channels,” or something like that, and I told him that maybe I’d take him up on a haircut.

That Wednesday, I called him to cash in my chips, asking if I could get two cuts instead of one.

“Anything you want, Benjamin,” Topper said. “Your wish is our command.”

He greeted us effusively at the door, offering us wine, which we politely declined, or water with bubbles in it, which we accepted. Topper was a gregarious, upbeat man, with horn-rimmed spectacles, apple cheeks, and a salt-and-pepper mustache and goatee, who liked nothing better than having company in at all hours. His spa, on a side street near the Beverly Hills border, served as something of a neighborhood salon, bringing all kinds of people together, where wine and conversation flowed freely and relationships flourished. It wasn’t unusual to find a movie star sharing an expensive cigar on the back patio with a busboy or delivery driver Topper had invited in on an impulse. If they were there it meant they had Topper’s stamp of approval, and that was all that mattered to anyone who knew him.

As Ismael and I entered, a TV actor with a flawless face—whose name escaped me—was in the stylist’s chair, getting some final clips. Minutes later, he was moving on to a pedicure, while Ismael took his place.

“Don’t make him look as pretty as the last guy,” I said, as the stylist draped Ismael. “I don’t want it to go to his head.”

While Ismael got his cut, Topper gave me a tour of the place, which he’d recently remodeled. It included a comfortable sitting room in front, with chairs and couches arranged around a fireplace, a steam room and massage rooms in a separate building out back, and indoor and outdoor lounges for cocktails and smoking. Colorful artwork hung on nearly every wall, with a small title card accompanying each piece. Several bold acrylic abstracts were by Billy Dee Williams, the noted actor once proclaimed the Black Clark Gable, who had studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts as a young man. There were also a couple of abstracts by Pietro Gamino, an up-and-coming neighborhood artist who, like Williams, dropped in at Topper’s from time to time. But what really caught my eye were delicate watercolors in more subdued pastels—not so much because of the skillful rendering but rather the artist’s signature in the lower right-hand corner.

“I see you collect pieces by Charles Wu,” I said.

“I’ve had these for at least twenty years,” Topper told me. “Aren’t they lovely?”

“I just discovered Wu myself.”

“I didn’t know you’d taken an interest in fine art, Benjamin.”

“Just Wu,” I said. “I’m itching to learn more about him.”

Topper leaned close, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Don’t tell anyone, but I got these in trade, before Charles really started making money. Today, they’re worth a small fortune.”

“He was a client back then?”

“Still is, only now he can afford to pay. Comes in regularly for a style, facial, and manicure. His wife as well, though they usually come in separately.”

“What a coincidence. Ismael and I are attending Wu’s gallery opening on Friday. That’s why I asked for the haircuts.”

Topper shrugged. “Not such a coincidence, really. You know how certain people run in circles in this town, and how often the circles overlap.”

“Especially here, Topper, where the elite meets the street.”

“I love that! I’ll have to start using it myself. Charles has me on his guest list, by the way. So I imagine I’ll see you at the opening.”

“Comes in regularly, you said.”

“Every Friday, four
P.M.
Very punctual, Charles. And talented, my goodness!” He lowered his voice again. “Although it’s really Angela who runs things in that family.” He winked. “The woman behind the man, as it were.”

He asked me what I was wearing to the opening. I told him I wasn’t sure and that it was a cause of some concern.

“You want to look nice for one of Charles’s showings,” he said, looking over my faded jeans and sweatshirt. “No offense, Benjamin, but you’re not exactly a fashion plate.” He put an arm around my shoulders and turned me toward his haberdasher. “I have just the solution. A rather well-known actor who shall remain nameless ordered some summer casuals a few months ago. Alas, he’s now in drug rehab for a long, court-ordered stay. I don’t think he’ll be picking up his new clothes. They’ll need some letting out for you and taking in for your friend, but otherwise, they should be a decent fit.”

Topper glanced across the room toward the stylist’s chair. “Where did you meet Ismael, anyway? He’s gorgeous!”

“At church, actually.”

“Church!”

“When he was a priest. He took my confession.”

“This sounds deliciously kinky!”

“It’s a complicated story, Topper. Maybe for another time. By the way, if we should run into you on Friday, you don’t know us, okay?”

Topper’s eyes narrowed behind his spectacles. “Benjamin, are you up to something again?” He threw up his hands. “Never mind! It’s probably better if I don’t know.”

Topper’s tailor measured and pinned me for a shirt cut from fine Thai silk and pleated pants from luxuriant linen. About the time my fitting was complete, the stylist was finished with Ismael and ready for me, so we traded places. Half an hour later, as the stylist completed his work, I tried to tip him, but Topper wouldn’t hear of it.

“Your money’s no good here, Benjamin. Not to worry, I’ll take care of him.”

Ismael and I were on our way out as a supermodel type waltzed in, so thin the warm breeze might have knocked her over. Topper greeted her like a sister, turned her over to his aesthetician, and scurried back to see us out the door. He told us we could pick up our tailoring on Friday, any time after lunch.

“You’ll need some decent footwear,” he said, sneaking a glance at my grubby running shoes. He handed me his business card, with a personal note and his signature on the back. “Run up to Kenneth Cole on the Strip. Have them call me. I’ll arrange something on trade.”

We were on the front steps by now, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to do a bit more probing.

“You must have known Silvio Galiano,” I said, “since he was so involved in introducing Wu around during his early years as an artist.”

“Indeed,” Topper said, beaming. “Silvio’s the very one who brought us together. He was a wonderful man, generous in so many ways. Did you know Silvio?”

“No,” I said carefully, “but I’m acquainted with Jason Holt.”

The mention of Holt’s name seemed to affect Topper profoundly. He suddenly looked as stiff as an unclaimed corpse at the county morgue. I don’t think I’d ever seen Topper out of sorts. But Holt’s name had definitely struck a nerve.

“Jason’s not one of my favorite people,” Topper said, with pronounced diplomacy.

“I’m not particularly fond of him myself. Is he a client?”

“He was, at one time. He used to come around for all the natural treatments, before he underwent all that god-awful facial work. Came in with Charles now and then, when Silvio wasn’t feeling well. Silvio paid for everything, of course. I never did understand what he saw in Jason, except perhaps his youth.”

“Youth can be a great temptation, especially to an older man with no one special in his life.”

Topper sighed grimly. “I suppose.”

“Holt and Wu were close?”

“You might say that. Jason introduced Charles to Silvio. Frankly, I think it was all part of Jason’s master plan. Help Charles’s career, making sure Charles was indebted to him, while playing the role of Silvio’s boyfriend.”

“A shame,” I said, “taking that fall the way he did. Silvio, I mean. It’s always worse, isn’t it, when it’s an accident, coming so unexpectedly?”

“And just when Silvio was starting to get better.”

I couldn’t miss the irony in Topper’s delivery.

“Silvio was ill?”

“Silvio had AIDS when he died. You didn’t know that?”

“There was nothing in his obituary about it.”

“Of course not. Silvio managed to keep it quiet while he was alive, so he wouldn’t lose business. Then his family kept it out of the papers after his passing. But his friends all knew. And Jason, of course. Jason knew from the very beginning, when he first met Silvio in the late eighties.” Topper paused, losing what was left of his smile. “I imagine that was part of the attraction.”

It was an odd thing to say, given how stigmatized and lethal AIDS had been back then. Or maybe not, when one thought it through.

“Quite a year for shocks,” Topper went on. “Silvio dying like that. Then Charles marrying Angela that June, just two months later. I must say, I never saw that one coming.”

He suddenly brightened, banishing the cloud hovering around our conversation.

“But enough about the past, Benjamin! Life’s too short for that.” He pressed complimentary bottles of cologne and skin lotion into our hands and gave us quick hugs, as a gleaming Rolls-Royce pulled into the driveway, dispensing another client. “I’ll see you two on Friday, even if I do have to pretend that you’re total strangers.”

TWENTY-TWO

The gallery showing Charles Wu was on La Brea Avenue, between Melrose and Beverly.

It was one of those L.A. streets that yuppies had discovered late in the last century, transforming it from a funky stretch of greasy spoons and secondhand stores where ordinary folks could find a bargain into a neighborhood where you needed five bucks for a fancy cup of coffee and another five for the guy who parked your car. It had become a playground for spoiled rich kids and their faux hipster parents, along with twentysomething wannabes who were willing to live in tacky little apartments so they could spend their money on the right cars and clothes, plummeting toward bankruptcy as they kept up appearances to run with an Abercrombie & Fitch crowd that made them feel like somebody.

Ismael and I arrived with our makeovers a few minutes past seven, bypassing the valet service to park around the corner, where the gallery’s manager wouldn’t see Ismael’s Toyota Camry.

“So how do I look,” Ismael asked, a touch self-consciously, “with my seventy-five-dollar haircut and fine summer threads?”

“Like a million bucks,” I said.

I meant it in the best way. Beige linen slacks and creamy silk shirt floating around his trim frame. Tan suede loafers without socks, the way the cool guys wore them. Thick dark hair clipped neatly around the sides but left long on top, falling boyishly across his forehead. Gleaming white smile in a darkly handsome face, with just enough stubble to add a sexy edge. He might have been mistaken for a model or a movie star—or, better yet, a jet-setting art collector out of Mexico City, which was our ticket through the door. But he never would have been pegged as an ex-priest.

The gallery manager checked our names against the guest list—for obvious reasons, I’d used a pseudonym—and welcomed us in. We stepped into a small room packed with well-groomed people chatting earnestly and sipping champagne from plastic flutes. The room opened into two larger spaces, equally crowded with trendy types, who seemed more interested in one another than in Wu’s art. It hung pristinely on clean white walls—finely rendered watercolor botanicals in the first space, oil portraits in the second, acrylic abstracts in the third—each painting uniformly framed and gently illuminated by its own overhead spot.

In the center of the first room was a round table where copies of Wu’s oversize book were displayed for browsing and sale. I picked one up and glanced at the title:
The Complete Charles Wu Portraits: 1987
–
2007
. The price—seventy-five dollars—was printed on an inside flap of the dust jacket.

“Not exactly cheap,” I said.

“Lasts longer than a haircut,” Ismael said.

“Good point.”

I leafed through the big, glossy pages, studying the excellent reproductions of Wu’s portraits. They were all done in the same style—more representational than impressionistic, with vibrant colors, rich highlights, and deep shadows that helped bring the faces to life and into sharper relief. I was struck by how Wu was able to capture a distinct mood and personality with each subject, bringing a sense of immediacy and intimacy to the portrait. I recognized a number of the faces, many of them Hollywood celebrities who ran in politically liberal circles, the kind who showed up at all the right fund-raising parties before being chauffeured home to their twenty-room mansions and hired help, but a few on the conservative side as well. There were also two former U.S. presidents—one Republican, one Democrat—reproduced on facing pages, as if to suggest that Wu took no political positions either way.