Mitchell Smith (62 page)

You come a little early-0. K. ? You’re sittin’ with the family.

Love, Charlie.”

Ellie turned off the machine, listened to it rewind, then walked out to the living room. It was stuffy, smelled faintly of paint and thinner.

She turned on the floor lamp, then went to open the windows wider, welcome in some of the cold night air. From the second window, near the far corner of the room, she could see the lights of the cars on the FDR

Drive across the river-running along like bright beads of mercury. At this distance, whispering.

She tilted the shade of the floor lamp so its light fell directly on the painting-and stood for a few moments, trying to look at it like a stranger. 1W

Ellie was relieved to see it wasn’t too bad-especially for wet in wet.

It was a good painting … not as pretty, maybe, as it should have been. The blossoms-bright yellow, dull orange, traces of brown-looked like blossoms … and seemed to burn like small fires in their clump of greenery. But it wasn’t very pretty. Everything was off to the right a little-the leaves, the stems and blossoms leaning that way. If there’d been more of a wind blowing, it would be perfect.

Before she thought about it anymore, and got worried, Ellie picked up her tube of viridian from the newspaper on the coffee table, squeezed some onto her palette, a smaller blob of black beside that, took a clean brush, shook two drops of copal medium onto the paints, mixed them-then leaned over the picture and painted four curled leaves against the white canvas to the right of her bending flowers. -Three of the leaves flying, scattering away in the wind one fluttering, its painted edges smeared, about to go….

It worked pretty well.

Ellie walked around the couch to look at the picture from farther away.

It looked good.

She walked back, and touched the picture lightly, just with one finger on the edge of the biggest blossom. -Almost dry. Dry enough to carry, tomorrow, if she was careful…. She’d be able to put a coat of retouch over it, take it over in the morning. Ellie squeezed another very small dab of black onto the palette, dipped the brush, and signed the picture in the lower right corner.

Klein.

She cleaned the brush in the kitchen, then went to the hall phone, looked up St. Christopher’s number in her address book, and called.

After several rings, a woman answered (elderly, perhaps Edna) and Ellie identified herself, and asked to speak with Sonia Gaither. There was a thoughtful pause at the other end of the line, then considerable clicking as the call was transferred to the dorm, and several more rings before a young girl answered the phone, then shouted for Sonia.

“Hello … ?”

“It’s Ellie, Sonia. Officer Klein. Sorry to call so late.”

“Oh … hello.”

“I’m just calling to let you know we have the people who … did that to your mom, your mother. There were two of them.”

“Two of them? -You got them .

“Yes. They were arrested today. -Two women …

Rebecca Platt and Susan Margolies. They robbed her. -They did it for money……

“But I met Mrs. Margolies. Sonia’s voice had begun to wobble like a child’s.

“I know … I know. Sweetheart, sometimes decent people do indecent things. I think Dr. Margolies is sick. The other lady, too, I think, in a different kind of way.”

“That’s why they hurt her … so much?”

“Yes. Probably the other lady did that. -But they won’t hurt anybody else. They’re in jail.”

“Are they going to put them in the electric chair?”

“No. They’ll lock them up until they’re very old. -Don’t spend a lot of time thinking about them, Son ‘ ia. They’re not worth your spending a lot of time on them. I’m sure your mother would say you have better things to think about than that.”

“I guess so………

“I’ll come up in a day or two, if you want me to. I’ll come see you, and tell you anything you want to know. -And I’ll bring the letters, too.”

“Nobody else read them?”

“Nobody else read them.”

“I guess you think she was really weird . . . all that stuff she wrote about.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Can you come up Sunday . . . ?”

“No, not Sunday. I have to go to a funeral. -What about Wednesday? You have classes all afternoon?”

“No. Wednesday’d be O.K. -Two o’clock is my last class. Latin.”

“O. K. -Main building at three? We can go for a drive and have dinner, if it’s all right with the people up there.”

“Oh, it’ll be O.K.”

“All right. Three o’clock, Wednesday. -You take care, sweetheart

“His. Klein-“

“Ellie.”

“Ellie. -Did you catch them?”

“My partner and I caught them.”

“Well . . . see you on Wednesday.”

“Bye-bye .

“Bye-bye.”

Ellie put the receiver down, went into the bedroom, took off the sheepskin slippers and white socks, undressed, and walked into the bathroom, touching her tender breasts, gently stroking them. The doctor had said no showers, no baths for a day or two so as not to wet the butterfly bandages.

SOL

She went to the sink, took a towel from the rack and spread it on the carpeting; then-standing on that-turned the water on, soaped her washcloth, wrung it out a little, and began to wash-soaping her face, tlien rinsing the cloth in hot water and wiping the soap away, She rinsed her face a second time, then soaped and rinsed her throat and neck, her shoulders, armpits, and breasts. She was careful not to wet the bandage on her left arm. She washed her stomach, her groin-reached around to do her back and down between her buttocks-then put her right foot up on the side of the tub, washed her leg and foot, then did the same with her left, not wetting the bottoms of her feet. -When she finished, she took a towel from the rack, dried herself, then picked the other towel up off the floor and draped them both over the shower-curtain rod.

Ellie stood looking at herself in the sink mirror, took a razor from the soap dish, and lifted her right arm so she could shave that armpit. Then she lifted her left, and did that one, -Her left arm ached, from holding it up.

Still watching herself, thinking about nothing, she let her hair down, and brushed it out, moving her lips, counting the strokes. When she’d done enough of that, Ellie opened the cabinet, took out her Ponds, and stroked the cream lightly into her face, taking care to trace the faint lines around her mouth.

She turned off the bathroom light, walked naked out to the living room to turn that light off. -The picture looked very good. It wasn’t wonderful-but it was a good painting. Ellie stood looking at it for a few moments, then went back down the hall for her purse, took out one of the small pink pills the Chinese doctor had given her, went to the kitchen and took it with two glasses of water.

Coming back, she picked up Mayo at the kitchen door, and carried him with her into the bedroom.

She dreamed of something green, then didn’t dream at all for a while.

Almost awake then, Ellie felt Mayo slide from underneath her hand, her sore arm outstretched as she lay on her stomach. She supposed he was going hunting. There was a cricket in the kitchen; she heard it after Mayo left her, and its dry music sent her deeper into sleep.

Rebecca and she were walking along the boardwalk at Coney Island.

Rebecca was old, but still nice-looking.

Ellie supposed she must be old, too, though she didn’t feel it. They’d been talking about Rebecca being in prison.

`-It could have been worse,” Rebecca said. “I got my marketing B.A….

correspondence.

Later, Ellie was alone, and looking for saltwater tafty.

She asked somebody, a man with a small white dog, and he pointed to Tommy, who was sitting on a bench out on the boardwalk in the sun, looking at the ocean. Tommy was wearing his summer suit, the light blue seersucker.

When Ellie walked over, he turned and looked up at her, then nodded to the sea. “-Take a look at that,” he said.

In the morning, after nine, Ellie woke to the thrum of traffic across the river. She lay in bed for a few minutes, remembering that Tommy was dead . . . deciding what she’d have for breakfast. Then she got up, went to the bathroom-her feet hardly sore at all-and, while she was sitting on the toilet, tested her injured arm, waving it as if she were conducting an orchestra, then making a muscle. The bandaged place was still sore, but the arm didn’t ache. It didn’t hurt when she clenched her fist.

She went out to the living room in her bathrobe, and found Mayo lying along a windowsill, his soft brown fur ruffled up against the screen. He was gazing down the right angle of mowed grass that opened onto the spaces of the river. The morning sun was bathing the lawn bright green-the hurricane fence below, silver whitethe width of the river beyond, oiled chain mail.

Ellie made herself scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast, and had a cup of Russian Caravan tea to go with them.

Then she sat at the kitchen table with her makeup kit, applied a light foundation, very light blue mascara and darker blue eyeliner, and tea-rose lipstick.

She went back to the bedroom, put on her bra and panties, dressed in dark brown wool slacks, a coffee blouse, her white running shoes and white socks. She went out to the hall, took the Smith & Wesson from her purse, brought it back to the bedroom and put it on the bed while she got into the shoulder-holster harness. The harness had two wide fitted loops for her shoulders-the left one supporting, fairly low, the small holster the Smith required-a narrow elastic strap running across her back to hold both loops firmly on, and another strap descending from the holster on the left to her belt, to hold that gun-weighted loop in place.

Ellie put her left arm carefully through its loop, wrestled her right arm through the other more casually, shrugged to settle the elastic comfortably across her back, then reached down to her left side to snap the retaining strap to her belt. She bent over the bed, picked up the pretty little pistol, and tucked it away well under the curve of her left breast.

The holster rig-with her bra-made for considerable harness, and Ellie had never liked it.

She went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, then came out to her closet, picked an oversized, cotton-knit cardigan sweater-jacket—dark brown-pulled it on, then went to the dresser to do her hair, twisting it up in back into a French knot, pushing a tortoise-shell keeper through it. The sweater had a collar, but Ellie lifted her blouse’s collar out and over it, and that looked better.

The tram car wasn’t crowded, the rush hour long spent.

Ellie stood by the window looking upriver . . . up-estuary, the painting, wrapped in newspaper, resting at her feet.

Far below, several small boats were churning down toward the harbor, and farther from the Manhattan bank, a sailing boat, white and blue, carved a long curve through gray water. By standing closer to the plexiglass, Ellie could look back and see her apartment building on the island . .

. her apartment’s tiny windows on the ground floor. Mayo might be lying on his windowsill, watching the sailing boat go breezing by.

Watching . . . thinkini nothing of it.

The tram-car reeled down to Manhattan; the building roofs came rising on the left.

“Oh . . . that’s pretty. That’s so pretty!” Audrey Birnbaum stared at the painting as Ellie held it up for her to see. ‘-Aren’t they pretty, Toddy … ?” Ellie saw she had trouble focusing her eyes; dull black, no longer glossy even in morning light, their gaze drifting away to glance here or there as if Audrey were frightened of being surprised by some intrusion. She looked smaller than she had before.

“They’re bright as sunshine,” Audrey said, and closed her eyes. “Bright as sunshine Ellie put the picture down against her chair.

“It’s beautiful work. Todd Birnbaum said. He was wearing a dark blue three-piece suit, white shirt, maroon tie, and black loafers. He looked older than he had when Ellie and Nardone had seen him at his office.

Older by the day. “Thank you very much, His. Klein. -Where would you like it hung?”

“It’s Audrey’s-it’s up to her.”

“Over there. Where that chair is A brown stick rose from the sheet to point.

“We have those adhesive-tape things. Birnbaum said.

“‘17hree of those ought to hold it,” Ellie said. “-The frame’s already got wire across the back to hang it from.

It’s still drying, so you’ll have to handle it gently. It’ll need a coat of finish varnish in a few months…… Ellie was sorry she’d mentioned months.

“Toddy … you be sure to get that done. They’re so pretty. . . .”

“I’ll come and do it,” Ellie said.

“I won’t be here, darling’. -You go to Toddy’s, and put that …

varnish … on. Toddy’s going’ to hang this paintin’ right over the piano in our livin’ room.”

Birnbaum had nothing to say.

Ellie sat and visited with them, but not for long. This morning, there didn’t seem much of Audrey left-not enough for two people to talk with.

-They’d heard about Rebecca and Susan Margolies; it was in the morning papers … on TV. Birnbaum was upset.

“It isn’t just hard to believe-it’s impossible to believe.

I’ve known Susan a hell of a long time … too long not to get to know her very well. I don’t think she could kill anybody-if you’ll excuse me for saying so-circumstantial evidence or not.”

“Shit, darling’-lots of people going’ to kill somebody if there’s money comin’, an’ they can get away with it. That bitch. ‘Doctor’ Margolies, my sad ass - - .” The brown skull turned, its eyes slowly opened to observe them, puzzled, as if it had almost forgotten why they were there. “Poor Sally . . .” said the skull, showing fine teeth and ashy gums. “-Any person loved livin’, it was her.

Killed by those two motherfuckers for her money. . . .”

A few minutes later, Ellie kissed Audrey, said goodbye, and was thanked for “My sunny flowers.” `-You can see that wind,” Audrey said,

“-blowing’ them away. . . .”