A Date You Can't Refuse (36 page)

“Do I?” I asked.

“You're the Haven Lane artist, right? Eleanor Winterbottom says you're topflight.”

“She is topflight,” Uncle Theo assured her.

“Oh, that Eleanor,” I said. “Always so kind. But the truth is, I've never—” I stopped. Should Mrs. Winterbottom be contradicted?

The woman looked up. “Painted on a parking lot? No worries. It's nicely paved, and we just put a fresh seal coat on it. We do it every two years. Chalk sticks beautifully.”

“How long do I have to work on it?” I asked.

“Until the sun goes down, and then all day tomorrow.”

“Gotta finish today,” I said.

She glanced at her watch. “Well, I hate to say anything's impossible. At any rate, sunset's at eight-oh-five. I know this because I've been looking it up for Samantha Tzu. She's squeezed every last minute out of the daylight, all week long. If you want a treat, go look at her work. She's our featured artist this year.”

I looked to where she pointed. Directly in front of the mission entrance was a chained-off area with a woman inside, working on a huge painting. They'd have to chain me too, to work on something that big, and in public, I told Uncle Theo. But as we approached, my apprehension turned to awe. The painting was glorious. Botticelli might have been airlifted out of the fifteenth century and plunked down in Santa Barbara. A Madonna frolicked in a forest with seraphim and cherubim, along with some squirrels and a couple of greyhounds. It was nearly finished. Samantha must have begun it around Christmas.

“Look!” Uncle Theo said. “Everyone's eyes have the epicanthic fold.”

The artist glanced at us, then returned to her work. I looked again. Uncle Theo was right; every cherub and angel and, most interestingly, the Madonna, looked Asian.

“Amazing,” I said.

“Wonderful,” Uncle Theo agreed. “My dear, I've been wondering all day, so put me out of my suspense: what will you paint?”

“Uncle Theo,” I said, anxiety returning, “I haven't a clue.”

Apollo stood by my twelve-foot square, a vast expanse of blacktop flanked on one side by “Channel Island Surfboards by Al Merrick” and on the other by “Gabby Mesquite, CPA.” Both of my neighboring artists were hard at work on their squares, both working from photographs. The Gabby Mesquite artist was doing a credible reproduction of Monet's
Water Lilies
, which did not immediately evoke certified public accounting, but that was reassuring. It meant that I didn't have to somehow tie in Haven Lane with the Blessed Virgin Mary. My hellos to the two artists were met with a grunt on one side and a curt nod on the other. I envied them their single-minded focus on the task at hand. It beat the paralysis of fear.

“I thought you were off to the bookstore with P.B.,” I said to Apollo.

“No, P.B. said I should stay behind,” he said. “We have a mission.”

“A mission at the mission!” Uncle Theo said.

“We are stalking Joseph Polchinski,” Apollo said. “We were told he would be here.”

“You're still stalking him?” I asked. “I thought you found him at Pepperdine.”

“No, that was bad information. Not Polchinski at all. Joseph Polonsky”

“Polchinski deserves a wider following,” Uncle Theo said. “I imagine he will be honored to be stalked by you. Ask him to expound upon the positive nature of dark energy.”

“First I must discuss Maldacena duality,” Apollo said. “And for P.B., Heterotic-O strings. We must stalk him again to get all the questions asked. Wollie, have you questions?”

“No. Just please don't be the kind of stalker that ends up in court,” I said, and focused on the blacktop in front of me.

I had no real education in art beyond high school and the odd extension courses at community colleges. I was an on-the-job trainee. What I did have was a lot of experience in greeting cards and moderate experience with murals. My twelve-by-twelve square was something in between, neither miniature nor panoramic. In fact, it was just life-sized. Okay, larger than life. Like a giant. Or yes, an angel, if your angels were more Caravaggio, all grown up and sexy, as opposed to the cute Raphael cherubs.

Or like a superheroine.

I grabbed the application from my purse, along with a pen, and started sketching.

“Wollie,” Uncle Theo said, “is that big fellow Zbiggo from Ukraine? I'm trying to place his accent.”

“No. Moldova.”

“Imagine not being able to distinguish Ukrainian from Moldovan. By the way, Mykola, my Ukrainian barber, gave me an update on the situation over there. There are rumors of Lukashenko entertaining ideas to develop the wetlands. He's already building nuclear energy plants, unthinkable just a few years ago. The country is very poor, so it's understandable, however distressing. There was an article in the last issue of
Welt am Sonntag
, a German newspaper. I was quite upset to learn of this, old tree hugger that I am. But
tonkey zvonek zvonit gromkey
, as Mykola says.”

I turned and stared at him. “Wait a minute. You speak Russian.” I did a quick sketch of the Cyrillic letters I had committed to memory. “Uncle Theo, what's this say?”

“Poprobuji 31 Aromat, tebe legko budet osmotretsya—Udachi.”
Uncle Theo looked skyward. “Let me think. Ah, yes. A loose translation would be ‘Thirty-one flavors. Easy to case the joint. Good luck’ Well. What do you suppose that means?”

My phone rang.

“Wollie, it's me,” he said without preamble. Simon didn't bother with an alias this time, and he didn't bother to moderate his tone of voice. “I want to see you in an hour.”

“Sorry, can't,” I said. “Unless you happen to be in Santa Barbara.”

“What are you doing there?”

“At this moment? Communing with the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

“How soon can you get back to L.A.?”

“No idea.”

“God
damn
it.” He was breathing heavily enough for me to hear it, a hundred miles north. Was he exercising? “Okay, I'm coming to you. Where are you specifically?”

“Not that it's any of your business—”

“My business is exactly what it is. I can't f—” Another intake of breath. “Don't give me any grief right now. Okay? Time-out. Whatever you're mad about, put it on ice. This is serious, and the clock is ticking, for both of us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you're in trouble and every minute counts. We can break up later, but right now, you've got to tell me where you are.”

The words made my blood run cold. Unless that was the poison taking effect. “The Santa Barbara Mission,” I said, and pressed the end button on my phone.

A
pollo had borrowed graph paper from the Channel Island Surfboards by Al Merrick artist, explaining that the most rational way to transfer my pen sketch of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the blacktop was to work it out on a grid.

“Yes, so I gather,” I said. “But I just got a phone call that was stressful to the point of hysteria, so I can't really concentrate on geometry, Apollo. It's not my métier. At the moment, I'm not sure I have a métier, but—”

“This is not even geometry,” he said. “It is only a simple calculation of—”

“Apollo! Are you listening? If you talk numbers or algorithms or stringy theories, I'll start screaming. Where the hell is Felix?”

“I believe I see Joey over there,” Uncle Theo said. “Perhaps she found something.”

My phone rang again.

“Bennett Graham,” he said, halfway through my hello. “Where precisely are you?”

“The Santa Barbara Mission.”

“Don't leave until we make contact.”

“But—but—”

Too late. He hung up. My phone rang again instantly. I answered.

“Wollie? Yuri.”

“H-hello, Yuri,” I said. “What's up?”

“I want you to come home.”

“N-now?”

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Uh—no. Everything's fine. Relatively speaking.”

“You sound uncertain.”

“No, no, I'm certain.” No one was dead, right? That I knew of. Today, anyway.

“Fine. I'll see you in about ninety minutes,” he said.

“Wait! Okay, we're right in the middle of things and the car is a little bit of a walk,” I said, and looked up to see Joey walking toward me. Felix was definitely not with her. Damn.

“You didn't use valet parking?”

“Where? Oh! No, we—the boys—wanted to meander before hitting the restaurant.”

“Two hours, then. Hurry before traffic gets bad.”

“But the boys—it's going to take some time to round them up and also my brother is … a little needy. At the moment.” Joey was standing in front of me now, signaling. “So P.B. may need a little transition time, since we were expecting to spend the afternoon togeth—”

“How long?” Yuri asked. “An hour?”

“An hour?” I repeated. Joey shook her head. “An hour's ambitious, Yuri. How about if I leave here around … sundown?”

“Sundown? What are you saying, eight o'clock tonight?”

“Eight-oh-five,” I said.

“Unacceptable, Wollie. You've got sixty minutes to pack up and say your goodbyes. Call me when you're on the road. I want progress reports.”

“Okay, but—” I looked at my sketch. “I'm in the middle of something that—”

“Finish it, whatever it is. You've got an hour. And Wollie?”

“What?”

“You haven't yet disappointed me. Don't begin now.”

I hung up and looked at Joey.

“Felix,” she said, “is inside the mission. He's being held by the Santa Barbara police.”

I
was on my feet instantly. “Okay, when you say ‘held’ do you mean under arrest?”

“Possibly,” Joey said. “It looks like pre-arrest right now, but it could turn official at any moment. By the way, that outfit is beautiful, so I hope you have a good dry cleaner.”

I glanced down at my chalk-encrusted eggshell shantung pants, threw a “Be right back” to Uncle Theo and Apollo, and took off with Joey toward the mission. My heart was racing faster than my feet. What had Felix done? Cased the joint, like he'd done at Tiffany's? To what end? And how was I to spring him, having no aptitude for obfuscation and possessed by an innate fear of police, no doubt having to do with my “father issues”?

Inside the mission I paused, letting my eyes adjust to the indoors. The chapel was beautiful, in a smallish, missiony sort of way, and powerful, in an old sort of way, the air thick with the resonance of a few hundred years of prayers. I added mine to the mix, genuflecting and making the sign of the cross with holy water. “Dear God, help me get Felix out of here and not in handcuffs either, Amen.” I hadn't been truly Catholic since childhood, but when in Rome …

“Over here,” Joey whispered, and led me to the only occupied pews.

Felix sat between two cops, one of whom stood as we approached. In the pew in front of them, facing backward, was a man dressed as a friar. Unless—yes, he probably
was
a friar.

“No visitors at the moment,” the standing cop said to me.

“It's okay, I'm with him. Fe—” I stopped. Felix was shaking his head in tiny, tic-like shakes. “Fee, fi, fo, fum,” I finished. “Sorry, my mind's on my chalk drawing. What's my friend doing here?”

“Which square is yours?” the friar asked. “Who's your sponsor?”

“Haven Lane,” I said. “It's a group living facility for—”

“We know Haven Lane,” the sitting cop said.
Nut jobs
, I imagined him thinking.

Felix looked at me with chagrin. “Wollie, I tell them just now I am Brad—”

“You? Quiet,” the standing cop said, then turned to me. “You? Name.”

“His name?” I stared at Felix, stricken.
Brad?

“Your name,” the cop said.

“Oh,
my
name. Wollie Shelley. I'm an artist.” Felix was staring at me, eyes bulging, trying to communicate the right answer. This felt like
The Newlywed Game
. “But not only an artist,” I said and Felix nodded slightly. “I am also, uh—”

“What's your relationship to this guy?” the talking cop asked.

“We … date.”

Felix's eyes were nearly popping out of his head now. Wrong answer.

“In a manner of speaking!” I said quickly. “I'm more of a transportation facilitator. And Fe—Brad—is my responsibility and I misplaced him. He doesn't know our customs, being from Ukraine.” Felix was frowning, hard. “Sorry. I mean … Belarus?”

Felix frowned harder.

“British Columbia,” Joey said. My friend had no problem lying.

“Anyhow, totally my fault that he wandered in here, and now I need to get him back.”

“Is your chalk drawing finished?” the friar asked.

“No. I mean, when it's finished, I need to get him back. By the way, what did he do?”

“I'd like to see your driver's license,” the talking cop said. “Your friend was snooping behind the altar.”

“Oh, I can explain that,” I said, looking through my purse. “Brad is very spiritual.”

“Jesus freak,” Joey said.

“Jesus made him skinny,” I said, but Felix coughed. “Which is neither here nor there. The point is, he's intrigued by representational art—”

“Our Lady of Sorrows,” Joey said, gesturing to a large painting on the wall. “All the way here, he could not shut up about it.”