Shifters (25 page)
Authors: Edward Lee
Whatever…
When they got out, the first thing Locke noticed was another car parked in the drive, another doozy: a black and wood-paneled 1923 Daimler Otto series. Mint. After riding in the Rolls, of course, it no longer surprised Locke that Lethe collected antique automobiles and spared no expense. But what he did find curious now was something he only caught a momentary glimpse of: a woman in a maid’s outfit had just gotten out of the Daimler’s driver’s seat and was now entering the front door; Locke could only see her from behind, could only tell that she was blonde. She carried a large suitcase, and she was being followed into the house by two thin women—a blonde and a redhead—dressed rather trashily in high heels, tight pants and tops. They too each trudged along carrying…
Huh?
Locke thought. Stacked up in their arms were what appeared to be a number of framed blank painter’s canvases.
Trashy looking chicks carrying canvases into a millionaire’s house?
Locke wondered.
What’s wrong with this picture?
“Who are they?” he asked.
Huh?
Locke thought. Stacked up in their arms were what appeared to be a number of framed blank painter’s canvases.
Trashy looking chicks carrying canvases into a millionaire’s house?
Locke wondered.
What’s wrong with this picture?
“Who are they?” he asked.
“Mr. Martin’s assistants,” the driver drolly replied.
“Mr…
Who?
”
Who?
”
“They’re always different each time. Mr. Lethe likes to entertain regional artists— Martin is a painter from Olympia.”
But Locke had only seen women, until—
A man got out of the back of the Daimler.
“That,” the driver said, “is Mr. Martin.”
Get out of town!
Locke thought.
Locke thought.
A long black-leather coat. A yellow mohawk fringed orange, funky sunglasses, and one of those silver rings in his lip.
This guy looks like something from a Nine Inch Nails show,
Locke thought.
Gee, I wish
I
had a lip ring like that.
That’s all this was, and that’s all Lethe was, a bored rich guy who fancied himself an artistic benefactor. Nothing to do with his time or money. Locke could guess that he himself was just more of the same, an amusement for the stuffy patron.
Whatever turns you on, Lethe. I’ll take your money.
This guy looks like something from a Nine Inch Nails show,
Locke thought.
Gee, I wish
I
had a lip ring like that.
That’s all this was, and that’s all Lethe was, a bored rich guy who fancied himself an artistic benefactor. Nothing to do with his time or money. Locke could guess that he himself was just more of the same, an amusement for the stuffy patron.
Whatever turns you on, Lethe. I’ll take your money.
“Let me show you into the mansion,” the driver said. “Mr. Lethe’s looking forward to seeing you.”
Martin and his queue of “assistants” disappeared into the house without even a glance to Locke or the Rolls, and it was then, after the initial distraction, that Locke took a closer survey of the sagging house. Twin flues on a high chimney poked up like horns. A peek around the side showed him sheets of discolored ivy crawling up the massive plank siding. He noticed a brick wall, man-tall, with interesting cement quoins and coping, appear to surround whatever back yard this place might have, but the grass before the fence had clearly not been mown for some time. Here was a startling contrast: two cars worth a couple hundred thousand apiece but a “mansion” in such disrepair, he wondered if it was even legally habitable.
I hope Lethe didn’t pay more than twenty grand for this out-house.
The cluttered woods sucked up the sound of Locke’s door closing, and the trunk when the driver grabbed his bag. Locke felt loomed over by darkness, the tall trees stamping out the afternoon’s daylight but something more abstract occurred to him, a fragment of imagery: it was the house itself that drained the day of its light.
I hope Lethe didn’t pay more than twenty grand for this out-house.
The cluttered woods sucked up the sound of Locke’s door closing, and the trunk when the driver grabbed his bag. Locke felt loomed over by darkness, the tall trees stamping out the afternoon’s daylight but something more abstract occurred to him, a fragment of imagery: it was the house itself that drained the day of its light.
What might it drain from Locke?
“Mr. Locke?”
The driver’s hand bid Locke up the porch steps to the vast front doors. A lead-veined fanlight spanned over the transom, its stained glass nearly black from age and neglect. The wooden door, too, looked black.
Black,
Locke abstracted.
Not really a color but an absence of color.
Then Locke’s attention was rasped by the door knocker, a small oval of old dull brass which assumed the shape of a face. But the face was bereft of features save for two wide empty eyes. No mouth, no nose, no jawline really—just the eyes.
Black,
Locke abstracted.
Not really a color but an absence of color.
Then Locke’s attention was rasped by the door knocker, a small oval of old dull brass which assumed the shape of a face. But the face was bereft of features save for two wide empty eyes. No mouth, no nose, no jawline really—just the eyes.
Groovy knocker…
The front doors creaked when the driver pulled them open—by now Locke almost had to laugh. He shuddered to think what the manse’s interior looked like. He pictured rotten paneling, rotten carpet, cobwebs and termite holes. Wallpaper falling down in rolls, leaving streaks of age-old paste. Maybe Lethe wasn’t rich at all, just a crackpot. Living in a house like this? Well, there were always the cars to consider. This entire endeavor was just getting weirder
,
and more and more divergent.
,
and more and more divergent.
For what Locke stepped into couldn’t have been more opposite. A long, slate-floored foyer lined with fine statuary. Veneered rosewood skirting boards led outward to a palatial atrium.
I…I stand corrected.
I…I stand corrected.
Locke, astonished, glanced into a huge greeting room to the left: hickory flooring covered by hand-made Ferraghan throw rugs. Larger statues carved in marble lined the wall; the other side hosted sconces inset with marble busts: Hannibal, Nelson, Frederick II and Henry V—all the great generals of history looked at the disheveled poet with apprising eyes. From a higher position, Tiberius—the Emperor of Rome during Christ’s life—brooded from his platform.
Though the outside may have been a “shit-heap,” the inside shined finely as the most well-maintained museum. Locke felt lost of breath as he scanned the room’s treasures, instantly recalling long-lost college classes in art history and antiquities. His feet trod on masterpieces of Persian carpet from Tabriz, Bijar, Safawi. Their rich colors glowed as if brand new, but Locke knew full well they were all sewn in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. What adorned the pastel-papered walls came as more of a shock. An original de Kooning, an original Mondrian. No, there was no Mona Lisa but Locke couldn’t help but recognize a few small canvasses by Constable, Titian, Miro, and an unmistakable variation of Monet’s “Haystacks” series. Locke brought his eyes only inches from each canvas and nearly threw up. These weren’t copies of reprints; the brushstrokes in the oil paint told all.
This guy’s got originals. They cost millions!
A final kicker was a six-inch by six-inch cubistic watercolor entitled “Lutists.” Painted handwriting in the corner read:
To A. Lethe, an admirable patron. Yours, P. Picasso.
This guy’s got originals. They cost millions!
A final kicker was a six-inch by six-inch cubistic watercolor entitled “Lutists.” Painted handwriting in the corner read:
To A. Lethe, an admirable patron. Yours, P. Picasso.
“Fuck,” Locke muttered under his breath.
Quiet footsteps echoed. Locke, still numb, turned. A tall man in a suit stood in the alcove; at first Locke thought it might be another statue but this statue moved. The suit was lambent white, tailored to the finest detail. Silver cufflinks winked when the figure shot its cuffs of Chinese silk.
“Mr. Locke. I’m honored that you could grace my humble house with your presence,” Lethe said. “Please don’t feel awed by the dead company you’ve spied on my walls. All great artists, yes. But none as fine as the living artist who stands before me now.”
Locke’s stare seemed a mile off. He cleared his throat.
The guy’s a nut…but he’s a rich nut.
“That’s quite a compliment, Mr. Lethe. But I don’t know that I can quite stand up next to Claude Monet.”
The guy’s a nut…but he’s a rich nut.
“That’s quite a compliment, Mr. Lethe. But I don’t know that I can quite stand up next to Claude Monet.”
Modest laughter issued from his host, a gaggle of sparrows fluttering forth. More footsteps snapped in the vast, echoic room, and as he came forward, Lethe raised his right hand, which contained a single piece of paper in a frame of hand-tamped gold.
Locke took it, looked down at it.
Beige, acid-free paper printed with these words:
THE AVOWAL (NEVER FINISHED)
by Richard Locke
Quickened unto this heaven, and so enspelled,
the writer looked at her asleep in bed.
He heard her breathe, and beyond befelled
the truth of what he never said.
Yet on she slept a lovely sleep;
here is the image his love doth reap.
Oh where is she now, and what are her dreams?
But he remembers how the moonlight gleams—
a resplendent angel in moonlight dressed.
And the writer thinks:
Yes, I am blessed.
Yes, I am blessed.
Locke had never been able to finish the work: his marriage proposal to Clare, which he’d never had the opportunity to give to her. He’d sent the fragment to some college literary rag, didn’t even remember the name of the publication.
Yet here was Lethe, holding the useless shaving of his muse before him in a frame that probably cost a thousand dollars.
“I hate to ask, Mr. Locke,” his patron begged. “But would you sign this for me please?”
Locke gulped, didn’t know what to say.
This guy really thinks I’m good.
Locke faltered; it was rare a reader asked him for an autograph—he didn’t know what to write.
I guess if it’s good enough for Picasso, it’s good enough for me,
he reckoned. Lethe handed him a genuine fountain pen. Locke inscribed:
To Mr. Lethe, an admirable patron. Yours, R. Locke.
This guy really thinks I’m good.
Locke faltered; it was rare a reader asked him for an autograph—he didn’t know what to write.
I guess if it’s good enough for Picasso, it’s good enough for me,
he reckoned. Lethe handed him a genuine fountain pen. Locke inscribed:
To Mr. Lethe, an admirable patron. Yours, R. Locke.
Lethe looked at the inscription in absolute delight. “Excellent! Thank you, thank you so much!” Then he turned and approached the wall, placed the frame on a pre-set hook,where he left it to hang between the Monet and a block print by Edvard Munch.
“There,” the man said. “Perfect.”
Locke’s eyes thinned in notice. Lethe had hung the poem several inches higher than any other work of art in the entire room…
(ii)
“Fuck!” Cordesman said.
The cool dark…stank. Of must and mold and fungus, of garbage and excrement.
And of human flesh just beginning to decompose.
A TSD crew had already knocked out the planks from the empty stained-glass windows, but the place still admitted little light.
Thank God,
Cordesman thought. He could see enough here in the dark, and the spotlamps propped up by the latent techs seemed to add glass-sharp details to the absolutely abominable scenario.
Thank God,
Cordesman thought. He could see enough here in the dark, and the spotlamps propped up by the latent techs seemed to add glass-sharp details to the absolutely abominable scenario.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Cordesman finally found his voice.
“Kidding?” Jill Brock queried.
Kerr was already gone. He’d walked in right alongside Cordesman, took one look, then walked out, muttering, “No way, no way. I’m not paid enough…”
Cordesman’s skin felt fish-belly white; he was sweating, his nostrils flared at the odor. It was hard not to let on that this bothered him. So he did something that seemed casual; he pulled out a Camel. “Come on, Jill. What’d you call me down to this meat-grinder for? I’m on a serial case and you know it.”
Brock looked preposterous in her red polyester utilities, her surgical gloves and mask, and her hairnet and rubber booties. “Don’t enter the church,” she ordered in a voice of concrete.
“Oh, I’ll be disturbing the priest? He’s in vespers right now?”
“Don’t fuck up my crime scene, goddamn it,” Brock hurled venom at him
Even Cordesman, in his disgust, had to object. “Well, excuse me. Is that any way to talk to a superior officer, Jill? I’m a
Captain
and you’re just tech staff.”
Captain
and you’re just tech staff.”
“That’s right,” she sniped, prepping a field chromatograph fume sampler. “At HQ you’re the boss. You tell me to shit on the floor and I’ll probably do it. But here? On a perimeter,
I’m
the boss. I work my ass off trying to do my job and then you and your goons come tramping all over the place leaving dandruff and hairfall and the shit on the bottom of your flatfoot shoes. It’s called crime-scene contamination. Ever heard of it? And don’t even
think
about lighting that cigarette. You exhale that shit in here and it blows my spec-blotters and fume samples. I don’t care if you’re a captain or an admiral or the chief of staff, if you fuck up my crime scene with your cigarettes and plodding around, I’ll order one of my flunky ‘tech staff’ to grab you by your two-foot-long hair and throw your ass out of here. Don’t believe me?”
I’m
the boss. I work my ass off trying to do my job and then you and your goons come tramping all over the place leaving dandruff and hairfall and the shit on the bottom of your flatfoot shoes. It’s called crime-scene contamination. Ever heard of it? And don’t even
think
about lighting that cigarette. You exhale that shit in here and it blows my spec-blotters and fume samples. I don’t care if you’re a captain or an admiral or the chief of staff, if you fuck up my crime scene with your cigarettes and plodding around, I’ll order one of my flunky ‘tech staff’ to grab you by your two-foot-long hair and throw your ass out of here. Don’t believe me?”
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