Harmony In Flesh and Black (10 page)

“Suppose we get the Heade,” Fred said. “I do the bidding, obviously. Clayton doesn't bid. Clay won't even go to the auction. I bring it back to your place. We stash it in the bedroom closet.”

“Jesus! Fifty million?”

“Just a picture. Then when it's convenient I drive it to Clayton's and we look it over together, Clay and I. Clay picks it up, looks at it from every angle, holding it out in front of him and tipping it to get the raking light.

“You know how aerial photographs taken when the sun is low, in the morning, will show old earthworks in farmland?

“So we'll look to see if there's any sign of the underpainting. But there isn't. Clay would have seen that this afternoon, when he went to the preview with Albert Finn, and he didn't mention it. The lack of visible underpainting doesn't mean anything, though, since Vermeer painted very smooth, and the Heade is done with unusually heavy impasto. Heade would have known that oil paint gets more transparent with time and allows underpainting to show through. He wouldn't want lines from the Vermeer to bounce out later and spoil his haystacks.”

“Gotcha,” said Molly, and she started tickling at the ice in the bottom of her glass. “Get to the part I don't know.”

“Anyway, then Clayton calls Higginson and says, ‘Guess what, I bought the Heade,' and Higginson says either ‘I'll tell the boss when he calls; he's in Japan,' or ‘Why would you want that?' The conversation results in Clayton's being invited over to look at the thing with Higginson under the museum's machines.”

“And little Fred comes along,” said Molly. “Because Clayton doesn't pick things up. Go on.”

“If there is an older painting under there, you can adjust your levels of penetration to find it. An X ray will pick out the metals in the whites, and that gives you a starting outline of the picture underneath.”

“So,” said Molly. “Say you don't draw a blank at that point, and there's the Vermeer. First Higginson has a fit. Then what?”

“We take it to Roberto, and Roberto tests a corner. It will be tricky because the Heade is old. Oil paint gets harder over time, and the harder it is, the more resistant it'll be to solvents. But that makes the Vermeer, in theory, two centuries harder than the Heade. What amazes us both, incidentally, if anyone did examine the painting seriously, is that nobody noticed the age of the canvas. You can see the fabric when you look at the back, and it is entirely different from what Heade should have worked on. One thing Clay said—we had about three minutes to talk behind Isabella's big arras, the one covered with ducks near the punch—if it isn't a Vermeer under there, it's something else. Something old and Flemish. It's like a Victorian church built on Roman foundations.”

“So,” Molly said, her green eyes burning. She was excited now because it sounded as if there had to be something there.

“After that it gets technical, and you'd have to talk to Roberto. But if there's another painting underneath, Roberto will find it. And let's hope it wasn't abused before Heade covered it up. We'll hope also that a good layer of dirty varnish gave it a cushion to protect it from Heade's brush. That would make it easier to separate, too. For all I know, Roberto can slip a solvent between layers and float the Heade right off so we'll have them both. What will dissolve the varnish in its layer might not get through to the paint on either side if there's enough of a buildup of greasy candle smoke and dirt to insulate it.

“A painting works in layers, like a cake. If you cut it in half and looked at the layers, you'd start at the bottom, with the canvas. Then there's the ground to make the cloth stable—that should be rabbit-skin glue on a Vermeer. Then maybe a layer of color. Then the underpainting, drawn with paint. Vermeer, though—you get this in Chris Norgren's book, an obscure one, but Clay swears by it; I think it sold about five copies, and Clay bought one of them,
Jan van der Meer van Delft
—Vermeer didn't draw on his canvases. His forms are seen in color, not in line. Then the painting itself, done in stages, glazes, over a long period of time. Months. Then a layer of varnish. Then dirt. Then two hundred years of new layers of dirt and varnish, and possibly somebody now and again painted on improvements. Films of smoke. And then the Heade, the icing, covered with a lot of Apthorp dust. Thank God they're selling it in estate condition and haven't cleaned it. That could have given away the whole show right there. And thank God Higginson's boss is in Japan. He'd look at the painting, into it, and not just see himself in it, as Higginson likely did—everything in the world being his mirror.

“Whatever happens, if what we suspect turns out to be likely, after we do the tests, there'll be a committee of conservators sitting around this picture for a year just thinking about it, like diamond cutters around the Hope diamond before a single blow is struck.”

*   *   *

They tiptoed into the house late. The kids were watching
Saturday Night Live.

“Come on, herm,” Molly whispered in Fred's ear, and leered. “Help peel me out of my basic black.”

9

The blossoms of Molly's pear tree tapped at the window. That side of the house got the sun early, so you woke to the sound of bees.

Molly was shaking Fred, alarmed.

“That man's dead,” she said.

“What man?”

“The one you told me about, where the nude came from—the one who still owes Clayton Reed a letter—Smykal. Henry Smykal.”

Fred woke up.

“It sounds awful,” Molly said. “God, Fred. We saw it. That was the fuss on Turbridge Street.”

Her yellow robe flapped. She was holding the front page of the newspaper. Fred smelled bacon.

He smelled Smykal's apartment, the old bacon-fat smell, the dust and cigar smoke; saw the hot lights behind Smykal's head; felt the pressure of Smykal's door against his toes. Saw the caked blood around Smykal and the depressed slack in the side of his head.

“I know,” Fred said. “Sorry about this, Molly.”

“You
know?
” Molly stared at him, stunned, going white, trembling.

“Let me get Clay on the phone,” Fred said, reaching across Molly's bed toward the table on her side where the phone was. He looked up into her staring face.

“What do you mean, ‘I know'?” Molly yelled, flushing and then going gray. Fred could see some of the awful thoughts that were pressing against her.

“When I went back to get that letter,” Fred said, “he was dead. It's more complex than that, though, since I went twice, talked to him the first time and found him dead the second. I elected to leave the body, saying nothing. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you either to take my part or not to. Still, I'm sorry to bring this with me to your bed.”

Molly dropped the newspaper and left the room.

Fred rushed through the article. One of the tenants in the building had Smykal's key, had been asked to come in sometimes and feed the cat (what cat?), had entered Saturday night and seen the body lying in its large, pooled scabs, and had called 911. The police weren't giving out information, but the reporter had found a willing bystander who'd seen the bloody mess. Smykal would have been happy about one thing: he was described as a “Cambridge artist.”

Fred smelled the bacon cooking downstairs. With great reluctance, he dialed Clay and got no answer.

“My God,” Molly said when Fred came into the kitchen. “What did you think I was going to do, tattle-tale on you?”

She was angry, and crying, as well as burning the bacon, standing in the middle of her kitchen and wringing her hands. “What am I, Fred? Someone to play with, for God's sake? The bacon's burning.” She went to tend to it.

“Molly, I'm not going to invite you to join me in a crime.”

“All the time, over coffee at Pamplona, talking about Heade and Vermeer—and after—the whole time, you were hiding what you knew. That filthy thing. Horrible thing.”

“That's true,” Fred said. Molly had coffee on the stove. He put some in a mug.

“Again the bold hunter stands between his little woman and the world,” Molly said. “It's why so many little women think the world looks like a man's back.”

Fred said, “You tell me I have a nice back.”

Molly turned on him furiously. “Yes. And I can read the scars on it as well, which we seem to agree never to speak about. Another of your secrets. For God's sake, whatever your wonderful mysterious past is, I know you, Fred. You'll do the decent thing. You used the word
elected?
Listen, Fred. I ‘elected' to accept you as a companion. That's a risk I freely take. It's faith. It's risk.

“So have some faith in me. Take a risk yourself.”

*   *   *

Molly opened the kitchen door to the backyard. The air was refreshed by last night's rain, which the bees disturbed among the pear blossoms. It was eight-thirty. The backyard glowed with spring promise. There was still ivy under Molly's maple tree; Fred hadn't used it all making his wreath. You could feel Spy Pond not far away, though you couldn't see it. Sea gulls wheeled overhead, and crows. It was cold, with bright sun twisting fronds of vapor through the damp yard. Fred followed Molly out, and they stood drinking coffee while Fred recounted what had happened Friday night.

“You'll have to tell them,” Molly said. “You were there. Someone saw you. You did nothing wrong, but they'll think you did if you don't report it, if you don't talk to them.”

“Clayton was there, too, earlier,” Fred said. “That makes the situation more complex.”

Molly said, “People will see—people who knew him—that the picture's missing. They'll assume you killed him and stole the painting.”

Fred said, “Maybe. But the killing wasn't about the painting. That's coincidence.”

“I didn't see how he died,” Molly said. “The paper said ‘by violence.'”

“They don't tell you,” Fred said. “Until they can get the official word. He was pounded to death. With a hammer.”

“How horrible,” Molly said.

Fred nodded. The man had been horrible also, but maybe not as horrible as his death. “He was pathetic,” Fred said. “His place smelled bad. He looked like one of those losers who can't keep a friend, can't finish anything, be anybody. He was doing pornography. As well as cocaine. I hate bringing you this, Molly, but there you are. Probably it's a simple thing; maybe someone discovered that he had Clay's money. Then it wouldn't matter who he was or what he was doing.”

Molly said, “You didn't tell me about the pornography.”

“Sorry,” Fred said. “I'm taking first things first.”

Molly said, “If he was involved in pornography, it's another story. Pornography can mean organized crime. The people involved in that stuff could have any number of reasons to kill someone.”

“I don't know,” Fred said. “When we were little boys and girls, maybe, but now? It's common as popcorn.”

“I hate your being seen there, Fred,” Molly said. “You're no picnic to look at. People remember you.” She began tidying the place under the maple tree where Fred had gathered ivy the night before.

“He had other people in there when I first tried to get in,” Fred said. “At least one voice, a woman's. Smykal was ‘filming.' But there was no sign of that activity when I found him. That's nagging me.”

“So,” Molly said, straightening up and brushing crumbs of dirt off her hands. “What do you plan to do with the situation?”

“Nothing until I talk to Clay, who doesn't answer his phone.”

*   *   *

Clayton appeared at the side gate. He was wearing a blue suit for this Sunday morning, with a white shirt and a sedate necktie. An orange blossom flourished in his buttonhole. He was ready for a wedding. Fred opened the gate for him.

“Yes,” said Clay, looking at both of them. “I have seen the newspaper. The matter of Henry Smykal has lost its simplicity. You did not kill him, Fred?”

Clayton was just asking.

This was only the second time Clay had come to Molly's house. The first was when Molly had made Fred invite him to a Christmas party a year back. It had not been a success. Ophelia had been there—part of Molly's plan. She and Clayton had not got along, but only Clay had realized it, Ophelia being more of an optimist.

“No coffee,” Clay said, spurning the cup Molly offered automatically. “I do not require stimulants. The garden's beautiful.”

Clayton was a gentleman. He apologized for coming around back. He hadn't wanted to wake anyone by knocking. He thanked Molly for her efforts the previous night and asked after the children.

“They'll sleep till noon if we let 'em,” Molly said. “Today we'll let 'em.”

10

Fred said, “You paid Smykal cash?”

Clayton and Fred sat in the yard in folding chairs while Molly stood in her kitchen doorway in the yellow terry wrapper Fred had given her, holding her coffee mug, from which the steam had long since stopped rising.

Clay made an expression of distaste. “The man said cash was the only form of payment he would consider. He could find someone else if I was not interested. He gave me three hours. Bluff, of course. But I didn't want him to try. I immediately cashed a check, came back, gave him cash, took the letter, as I thought, and arranged that you would pick up the painting an hour later.”

“Did Smykal understand what he was selling you?”

“He did and he didn't. I told him enough to make my interest reasonable. Of course not. He knew basically what it was. He knew what he wanted for it.”

Clay was stalling.

“Look,” Fred said. “I have to know, is there anything to show you were in that apartment?”

“If Smykal made notes, he didn't have my name. It's obvious he wanted to keep our transaction secret. Let them look all they want for Arthur Arthurian.”