Solos (20 page)

“I'll be seeing you, then, Marcus,” Dr. Demand calls. “You and your bicuspid.”

When Marcus turns, the dentist is going out the front door, with a jaunty wave, and Anstice is looking blissed-out with an overlay of puzzlement. “So—Marcus? You want to talk to me about something?”

“Well, yes—I do.”

Marcus looks around the big, bare, industrial lobby, as if a conference room might present itself—maybe a room hung with rugs, a hookah in the corner, where spice merchants in turbans once gathered. Anstice smiles apologetically as if suddenly remembering that she is well brought-up and that she is wearing a nightgown and mules and a quilted red Chinese jacket. “Can I offer you a cup of tea?”

“Yes,” Marcus says, with relief. “Tea would be great.”

They go back up in the elevator in silence until, at about the. fourth floor, Anstice blurts out, “Oh, all right, then,
yes
. Yes, we are seeing each other. I know it's—well, I mean I know he—okay.” She takes a deep breath, her bosom heaving, tears in her eyes. Marcus stares at her, stunned.
No, Anstice! There's no need to do this!
“He has a wife on Long Island. Betty. We all know that. And three little kids. Okay. But this is real, Marcus. This is it. This isn't a fling, or—”

They arrive at her floor. Marcus opens the door.

He has no idea what to say.

He stands aside and lets Anstice precede him out of the elevator and follows her down the hall to her loft. They go in—his first impression is
cats
. She turns to him. Her eyes are wet, pleading. “I am not a home-wrecker!”

“Anstice,” he says, putting out a hand and touching her red Chinese sleeve. “I have a lot on my mind. You don't have to worry about what I think. I don't think anything. Really.”

They look earnestly at each other for a moment. Slowly, Anstice reaches into her pocket, removes a lace-bordered handkerchief, dabs at her eyes. Then she sighs, and her little smile returns. “Okay,” she says. “Thanks, Marcus. You're a very nice person.”

She goes off to put on the kettle, and Marcus sits down in the striped wing chair. Sun pours through the window; the river in the distance is pure blue. The cats come over to sniff at his pant legs. He counts five, and then a sixth emerges from under the desk—a tiger cat who jumps to his lap, kneads briefly, and curls up there, purring. Marcus is aware that Anstice's loft is beautiful and perfect, but he takes it in no more thoroughly than he took in her romance with Dr. Demand.
The Whacks
, he is thinking as he pets the tiger cat absently.
Where are the Whacks?
He has no idea how he will ask this question, and he has no way of being sure Anstice will know the answer, but she is where he has to start because, at the moment, she is all he has.

Anstice returns, with a silver tray bearing a teapot, two mugs, and a plate of molasses cookies. She has changed into large white pants, a matching sweater, and fluffy red slippers, which Marcus finds himself staring at. “Well,” Anstice says brightly. “What's up, then, Marcus?”

Without thinking twice he blurts out the whole story before the tea finishes steeping: Hart, murder, money, snooping, Whack—it all tumbles out in a rush while Anstice sits opposite him nibbling on a cookie. All he wants is to get rid of it, to lay the story down for someone else to deal with, and as he talks he wonders if he has ever done this before, and he can't think of a single time. It's probably a huge mistake, Anstice will either think he's nuts or she'll call the police. But he can't stop himself, doesn't want to stop, wouldn't stop if he could. He finishes with the Joint Tenancy Agreement, quoting its flowery language, and then he pauses for breath and says, “So I wondered if maybe you know where those paintings are. Since you were Whack's landlady. And you're Emily's friend. And I don't know who else to ask.”

Anstice is chewing, and when she finishes she pours tea for them both, takes a sip, and sets the mug back down on the coffee table. “You actually saw these documents? This joint tenancy thing and also the divorce decree? There's no doubt that she owns the paintings outright? I mean, the divorce agreement gives her the paintings? For sure?”

“It seemed to. It looked pretty official. Unless a joint tenancy agreement is—you know—perpetual or something.”

“And am I losing my mind, or did I just hear you say that Tab Hartwell is your father?”

“He's my father.”

“And he asked you to kill Emily for these paintings?”

“Yep.”

“Holy shit.” She puts her hand to her chest and takes a deep breath, like an actress in a melodrama. But it seems perfectly appropriate. Marcus feels like doing the same thing. “Okay,” Anstice says. “Give me a second here. I need to think.”

Marcus picks up his mug and sips some tea. He's a little shaky. He was so nervous about snooping at Emily's that he couldn't eat breakfast. He touches the cat on his lap, feeling the powerful purr under the fur.
If you could harness purring
, he thinks,
you would solve the energy crisis. An endlessly renewable source. All you have to do is pet them or give them some chicken. Sometimes you just have to talk to them in that funny voice they like. Or catnip
—
with enough catnip the average cat-loving community could take care of all its energy needs
. Marcus looks out at the river, which is still the intense marine blue of an autumn afternoon. A red tugboat is chugging by.
Life
, he is thinking.
Life is
—

He puts his head back against the chair, afraid suddenly that he might, mysteriously, start to cry.

“Okay, then,” Anstice says. “Two things.” She is holding up two fingers, and she ticks them off as she speaks. “One: the storage closet down the hall. Two: Wrzeszczynski.”

Marcus sits up straight. “Wrzeszczynski?”

She nods, smiling, ticks off the two fingers again. “Storage cupboard. Wrzeszczynski,” she says, and smiles so hard it turns into a laugh. “I believe this whole thing is going to be very beautiful.” She stands up. “Let's go.”

Marcus lowers the cat to the floor. Anstice grabs a set of keys from a hook by the door, and they go out into the hallway, to a door at the end. On it is a brass plaque, a match to the one on the door of her loft:
STORAGE
, it says in precisely incised letters. There is also a discreet little burglar alarm box. Anstice punches in a code, there is a double beep, and she opens the door with a key. “My junk room,” she says, and they walk into a room that's about the size of Marcus's apartment. It's lined with built-in cupboards and shelves, some of them padlocked.

“Down here.” They walk through to the far end, where a tall window lets in hazy light. They pass a rack of garment bags (“Clothes from my thinner days,” Anstice says. “Can't bear to get rid of them.”) and a tower of cardboard cartons labeled
AGNES'S KITCHEN STUFF
(“Grandma Mullen's cook's
batterie de cuisine
. Ditto.”) and a collection of engraved silver urns (“Various family cats, R.I.P.”), until they get to a row of six cardboard cartons. Each one contains a dozen or so canvases, showing only their backs where the canvas is stapled to the stretchers.

“Ready?”

He is not, actually. “These are all Whacks?”

“To my knowledge, yes. Whacks are pretty unmistakable. Ever seen one?”

“Just one. Once. Long ago. It was some toast, as I recall, with safety pins and a broken cup.”

Anstice chuckles. “Bingo! That's a Whack, all right. I've been thinking that it's hard to believe anyone would want these, much less pay big bucks for them, but given what's passing for art over in Manhattan, I guess it's not so crazy. Do you ever go to the galleries? Hilarious!”

“Could we—”

“Oh. Sure.” She gestures. “Be my guest. Take a look.”

The canvases are all the same size, and they are not very big. It takes him a few minutes, but Marcus pulls each one out of its box and looks at it. There are indeed seventy-four of them. In the light from the window, their drab grays and off-whites take on an eerie glow, and the occasional jolt of color is startling. Each of them is a semi-abstract still life similar to Summer's toast and pins. There's an empty jar with a spoon in it on a table with what appears to be a postcard. There's a crumpled tissue, a paper clip, and a wine bottle. A wristwatch, a golf ball, and part of a birdcage. Candy wrapper, milk bottle, bit of carpet. Book, transistor radio, oil can.

“It's always three things.”

“Oh, yeah,” Anstice says, with an emphasis on the
Oh
. “Part of the general weirdness.”

“There should be some pastels, too. And notebooks?”

Anstice goes to a shelf and pulls down another box. Inside are three notebooks. Leafing through them, Marcus sees endless pencil drawings of the sorts of things Whack painted—he pauses at a particularly beautiful and detailed broken cup that must be the one in Summer's painting. The two pastels are pressed flat in a folder: both portraits, both recognizably the same man, though in one he is young and, while not handsome, at least full of vitality, his cocky gaze aimed straight at the viewer. In the other he is wasted, sick, his eyes cast down as if he's just heard his death sentence.

“Christ.”

“That's Joe.”

“What did he die of?”

“I don't really know. If it wasn't AIDS, it sure looked like AIDS. It could have been cancer. Could have been a combination. He was from the Midwest, somewhere. Michigan? Arkansas? Someplace like that. I don't think he had any close relatives, and as far as I know his only friends were Hart and Emily. There was some kind of memorial service for him here, but I didn't go. To be honest, I didn't much like him. Nobody did, really. He was a surly bastard, and he refused to have any animals.” She picks up a painting—candy wrapper, milk bottle, carpet—and carries it closer to the window.

“It's funny. I haven't looked at these in years. They aren't as bad as I remembered. Not that I know much about it. But they have a point of view, at least, don't they? I mean, they're not
bland
. And the guy could paint, I'll give him that.” She puts the painting down, picks up another. “Jeez. I'll buy one if Emily gives me a decent enough price,” she says, and laughs. “Who woulda thought it? I've been living down the hall from a gold mine.”

Marcus reminds her that he could be wrong, maybe it's not the paintings his father wants. Or that Hart could be wrong, and they're not really worth much of anything. Anstice says, “That's where Wrzeszczynski comes in.”

“I don't really know Wrzeszczynski.” Wrzeszczynski is the periodontist who shares an office with Dr. Demand.

“Never had your gums done, eh? Lucky you.”

They stack up the paintings again, lock up, and go back down the hall to Anstice's place. “Unfortunately, I know Wrzeszczynski only too well.” She bares her teeth, revealing pricey pink gums. “Well, maybe not
unfortunately
. If I hadn't spent so much time in that office, I doubt that—well, you know.” She shows her teeth again, this time in the shy smile of the elevator. “So. Okay. Wrzeszczynski owns a Whack. Maybe more than one. But I remember that he bought one, because Joe told me one time when he paid his rent. This was back in—oy, let me think—probably ten years ago, maybe longer. I doubt he paid much for it. Anyway, I'll give him a call. Maybe he knows something about their value nowadays. Or maybe he'd like to buy another one—who knows?” When they go in the door, the six cats come running, weaving around ‘their legs. “Sit,” Anstice says, and Marcus realizes she's talking to him. “Have some more tea. And a cookie—please. You didn't touch a one. Grandma Mullen's feelings would be hurt. Agnes is probably having a heart attack in her grave.”

Marcus sits down again in the wing chair, and the tiger cat repositions itself on his lap as if they're old friends. Marcus realizes that his heart is pounding, and he is suddenly very hungry. He bites into a cookie. Anstice settles opposite him with a cordless phone. She hits a “memory” button and says into the receiver, “Renata, sweetie? It's Anstice Mullen. I need Dr. Wrzeszczynski, if he's there. I think it might be an emergency.” She winks at Marcus. “Thanks, doll.” While she's waiting, she puts her hand over the receiver. “Hey Marcus? Why didn't you just carry this story to Emily?”

Marcus finishes his cookie. It is the best cookie he has ever eaten. “I didn't want her to know Hart is my father.”

“Well, I guess I can't blame you for that. But shouldn't she at least know that someone is gunning for her?”

“How could I tell Emily someone wants to kill her?”

Anstice looks at him reprovingly. “Jeez, Marcus, she's not a child.”

“No, but—” He has to struggle to explain, and he feels ridiculous, since Anstice and Emily are both so much older than he is. He hates feeling like a kid. “She's—I don't know, she's sort of like an animal. I mean, innocent like that. Like this.” He scratches the head of the cat on his lap, and the cat rubs vigorously against Marcus's fingers. “She lives in a world that just doesn't have people wanting to murder her in it.”

“Well, Marcus, most of us live in a world that doesn't—Hey! Dr. Wrzeszczynski! It's Anstice. How are you?” There is a pause. “Well, yes, but it's not a dental emergency, it's an art emergency. I hate to take you away from those lovely bleeding gums, but I just need you to answer one quick question. What's with Joe Whack? I mean, what do you know about his paintings? My friend Marcus has just discovered a bunch of them.” Another pause, and Anstice listens, looking at Marcus the way people do when they're on the phone. Her eyebrows go up, then down. From time to time she says, “Oh,
really
?” or “Wow,” or “Hmmm.” Marcus wants a second cookie, but hesitates. Anstice leans over, holds out the plate, and Marcus takes another. “Hmmm, wow,” Anstice says, and raises her eyebrows again at Marcus. “Well,
that's
interesting. Sure, I think so. Just a second.” She covers the receiver and says, “Wrzeszczynski wants to meet you in an hour. Can you be there?”