Children of Light (29 page)

“Passionate,” Miss Armitage told the people at the table. “Fierce and full of rage. It’s wonderful work.”

“It resembles the cartoons of Mr. Magoo,” Maldonado said. “A Mr. Magoo passionate, fierce and full of rage.”

“He tortures himself,” Ann Armitage lamented.

“I torture myself by enduring banalities in silence. I wish on my mother’s grave I had never learned the English language.”

“You probably went too far,” Walker suggested. “You should have learned a little restaurant English. Enough to order flapjacks. Certainly not enough to understand Miss Armitage on the subject of Mexican painting.”

“What’s he doing here anyway?” Miss Armitage asked Charlie of Walker. “Why isn’t he somewhere chained to a hospital bed?”

Charlie muttered soothingly and looked at the table.

Maldonado turned to Lu Anne.

“Before you there should only be truth. Because of your eyes.”

“How serious everything’s become,” Lu Anne said. “First the choreographer at the Sands and now this.”

“You started it,” Walker pointed out to her. “Ask a tactless question and you get the long answer.”

“The choreographer at the Sands?” Lowndes asked.

“I’ve never spoken the truth in English,” Maldonado told them. “Is it possible?”

“Oh yes,” Lu Anne said. “But very Protestant.”

“I’ve taken to diving,” the artist told her. “I take pictures wherever there’s coral. Then from the pictures I paint. Can you imagine what it’s like to vulgarize the bottom of the ocean? The source of life? When you know the difference?”

“Courage,” Walker told the artist, “you’re talking to the right crowd. There are people at this table who can vulgarize pure light.”

“I want to tell you more,” Maldonado said. “More of the truth.”

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Lu Anne asked the people at the table.

“Great face,” old Drogue said. “Good bones.”

“Mr. Maldonado,” Lu Anne said, “if you were the god of good bones it wouldn’t matter what you told me. The truth is no concern of mine.”

“Can’t you see she’s crazy?” Miss Armitage asked her friend.

“Because I lie so well in your language,” Maldonado said, “and because I listen so well to lies, I’m successful. Perhaps also because I’m beautiful and have good bones. Now I have an arrangement with a very prestigious department store. They sell my paintings there and my prints. They also use my designs. So I can look forward to the day, Miss Verger, when my visions will be stamped on every shower curtain in America. In every swimming pool, Jacuzzi and bathtub. On the toilet wallpaper and in the toilet bowl. Wherever sanitation is honored—Maldonados. Standing tall.”

“Somebody’s got to do it,” young Drogue told him.

“Hey, man,” Patty said to her husband, “you know we own a lot of this guy’s stuff and he’s telling us it’s all crapola.”

“We can fix that tomorrow morning,” young Drogue said. “One phone call.”

“Do you want me to forgive you, Mr. Maldonado?” Lu Anne asked. “I would forgive you if I could.” The Long Friends gathered round her. “But I myself am no more than good bones. A rag, a hank of hair and good bones.”

“Just a minute,” Maldonado said. “We have a bargain. This is the time of truth among truth tellers. You people,” he told the people at the table, “you who know how good you are! Tell us!”

“Come off it, man,” Axelrod said.

“Yeah, man,” Dongan Lowndes said. “Come off it.” He seemed restored to full vigor and he was doing an imitation of Axelrod.

Axelrod looked at him pensively.

“I don’t want anyone to leave,” Maldonado said with a hint of menace. “I want everyone to explain themselves.”

Lowndes raised his glass, which contained tequila
au naturel
, in Charlie’s direction.

“Thank God it’s Freitag,” he declared.

“This is fun,” Walker said. “This is better than poker. Who opens?”

“What do we need?” Ann Armitage asked. “Do alcoholism and impotence make a pair?”

“Miss Armitage,” Walker announced, “was the only person in America actually hanged during the McCarthy period. She was strung up at the height of her career from the witching elm at the Hamilton horse trials.”

“You louse,” Ann Armitage said in her cultivated voice. “You eunuch.”

“Miss Armitage is a student of sexual prowess in males,” Walker continued, “and a major Mexican art critic. She combines in her single self the principal attributes of Eleonora Duse, Eleanor Roosevelt and Eleanor of Castile. Also Rosa Luxemburg, Sacco and Vanzetti. If a passing divine hadn’t noticed her dangling there during the dressage competition and recognized the visible manifestations of grace, her poor alcoholic impotent husband might be alive today. Pretty soon she’s going to write her memoirs and we’ll see a parade of virtue as long as Macy’s at Thanksgiving but with twice as much gas and imagination.”

“Everyone’s under a lot of strain,” Charlie Freitag said grimly.

“They’re all drunk, Charlie,” Axelrod explained. “That’s what it is.”

“Tell him about yourself, Gordon,” Walter Drogue junior said.

“Walter’s a wonderful dresser,” Walker told the Mexican, “and he’s a feminist and he’s not taking a writing credit on this movie because he hasn’t written it.”

“Watch it, buster,” Patty Drogue said.

“These are only insults,” Maldonado complained. “It’s childish to insult people for being only what they are. I want to hear about ability.”

“Laughter,” Lu Anne said. She looked radiant in the firelight and everyone watched her. “Ability and sighs.”

“For Christ’s sake, Maldonado,” Walker said, “everybody here is at least pretty good.” He took Lu Anne by the hand. “This one thinks the owl was a baker’s daughter but she’s as pure as country water.” He turned to Freitag. “And Charlie—Charlie,” he said, “are you O.K.?”

“Everyone’s under a lot of strain,” Charlie Freitag said.

“Charlie’s under a lot of strain,” Walker explained.

“Tell him about yourself, Gordon,” young Drogue said again.

“He knows, Walter. He and I are
compañeros
in crime. Two flash acts. Where did we go wrong? Who knows? Who gives a shit? We’ve done O.K.” With a sweep of his arm he encompassed the patio, the neat lighted pathways and the dark bay. “Here we all are, man. On top of the hill.”

“Top of the world, Ma,” Axelrod said.

“Then there’s Axelrod,” Walker said, “who should have been pushed out of a ninth-story window of the Half-Moon Hotel at an early age.”

“Your momma,” Axelrod said.

People were coming by in various stages of intoxication to eavesdrop and to bid Charlie Freitag farewell. The fires were being banked and the meat wrapped in foil to keep it warm.

Maldonado sagged in his chair. His charge was wearing down, fatigue and drink weighed down on him. He looked at Lowndes, who was wide awake at the end of the table, an unsound smile on his face.

“What about
him
?” Maldonado asked Walker.

“He’s a bone god,” Lu Anne said.

“We’re not going to talk about him,” Walker said. “He’s dangerous work for the likes of you and me.”

Axelrod slapped Lowndes on the back.

“He’s a collector. He collects art.”

Everyone at the table looked at the former novelist.

“It’s been heaven,” Patty Drogue said. “Can we go now?”

“I’m going to turn in,” Charlie said. “I think we all should. When all is said and done,” he told them, “we still have a lot of work to do.”

“Oh,” Lu Anne said, “but not tomorrow, Charles. We’re free tomorrow.”

“Damn right,” Lowndes said. Everyone turned to him. “This lady doesn’t need some damned Freitag to tell her when to retire,”

“Hey, Dongan,” Axelrod said, “that’s not polite.”

Freitag appeared not to have heard himself insulted.

“Dongan …” he began, “I hope you’ll bear with us.”

“Don’t call him Dongan,” Axelrod said, “he doesn’t go for tinsel-town familiarity. Hey, Charlie,” he said, taking Lowndes by the arm, “how long has it been since we had to buy pictures off some wise fuck?”

“What kind of pictures?” Freitag asked.

“Yes,” Ann Armitage asked, “what kind of pictures, Mr. Lowndes?”

“I don’t know what you goddamn people are talking about,” Lowndes said. “What are you so worried about? Isn’t there a clear conscience in the crowd here?”

“I have to tell you,” Lu Anne said, “that we played with the bones. Yes, we did. Gordon.” She looked beseechingly at Walker and then at each of the others in turn. “Mr. Lowndes. Walter. Charlie. Sir. And you, sir, and you, madam, whose forgiveness I implore. We went to the cemetery, and where the ovens—the crypts—were broken, we played with the bones.”

“You go ahead, Patty,” young Drogue said. “We’ll be right there.”

“Don’t follow the counsels of drink, Lowndes,” Walker said. “Liquor’s not your friend. Tomorrow, we’ll have a conference call—you and Axelrod and Van Epp—it’ll work out great. Everybody will make out great.”

“What pictures?” Charlie Freitag asked. “What pictures have you got, Mr. Lowndes?”

“Charlie,” old Drogue said, “let them work it out. Don’t put your health at risk.”

Lu Anne got up and went to Freitag and took his arm. Lowndes watched her hungrily.

“They said it would make us sick and we didn’t listen,” she told Freitag. “All summer we would creep over in the middle of the day.
Inside it was cool and awful-smelling. We played with the bones until old black Pelletier come yelling at us. You all know how kids are. My sister would run across the street, eat a Sno-ball—never even wash her hands.”

“Go to bed, Lu Anne.” Charlie turned to Walker. “Gordon, please.”

Walker stepped beside her.

“Pictures?” Maldonado asked.

“He’s a reporter,” Ann Armitage explained to her friend. “He has a hot picture and he wants to be paid off.”

The information seemed to depress Maldonado utterly.

“How do you like the sound of that, Lowndes?” Walker asked. He turned to Maldonado. “He can write the birds out of the trees, this guy. The good fairies brought him insight and invention and sound. But the bad fairy took his balls away.”

“Don’t provoke him,” Lu Anne said. “You only think he’s a man. He isn’t really.”

“So here he is,” Walker said. “He’s got all this great stuff going for him. He’s a first-class writer and a fourth-rate human being. He doesn’t have the confidence or the manliness to manage his own talent. He doesn’t have the balls.”

“But you would, would you?” young Drogue asked Walker. “If you were as good as you claim he is, you’d be one terrific human being. Is that what you’re telling us?”

“If I was that good,” Walker said, “I would never waste a moment. I’d be at it night and day. I’d never take a drink or drug myself or be with a woman I didn’t love.”

“Listen to him,” old Drogue said. “You try to tell people writers are assholes and nobody listens.”

The Drogues turned away into the darkness.

“Good night, all,” Ann Armitage said. She drew herself up and waited for Maldonado. “You guys slay me,” she said, “with your going on about balls.” Sadly, the portly Mexican rose and went with her.

“I did get sick,” Lu Anne said. “I breathed them inside me from a cemetery wall. Playing with the bones. Them, there.”

She pointed to the Long Friends who were clustered about Lowndes trying to touch him with their long, delicately clawed fingers, affecting to enfold him in the fine tracery of their dark wings.

“Little sister,” Lowndes said. “You’re a long way from home.”

“I’ve come a long way from my cemetery wall,” Lu Anne said. “Sometimes I think I’ve ceased to be God’s child. I think you found me out, Mr. Dongan Lowndes.”

Axelrod and Lowndes stood up at the same time, Axelrod placing himself between Lowndes and Freitag. Freitag stepped back with Lu Anne on his arm.

“You’re a sweet woman,” Lowndes said. “You don’t belong with this pack of dogs.”

Freitag gasped.

“All right, fucker,” Axelrod said. He tried to take hold of Lowndes but the writer got by him.

“You have found me out,” Lu Anne screamed. “The shit between my toes has stood up to address me.”

Lowndes had bulled his way past Axelrod and was headed for Freitag and Lu Anne. He had lost his glasses and he staggered as though blinded by Lu Anne’s light.

Her teeth clenched, Lu Anne made a swipe at Lowndes’s face.

“He’s all filth inside,” she said. “Look at his eyes.”

Lowndes raised his hands to protect himself. Walker stepped in and gently pulled her back.

Lowndes had backed up against an adjoining table. He had lowered his head into something like a boxer’s stance and his fists, only half clenched, were raised before his face. His pale brown myopic eyes, tearful and angry like a child’s, darted from side to side, trying to focus on the enemy center.

It was enraging to see the man in such a posture, Walker thought. His insides churned with anger, and with pity and loathing.

“Get away from me, you crazy bitch,” Lowndes shouted at Lu Anne.

Walker was uncertain whether Lowndes had tried to strike her or not. He hesitated for a moment, decided the loose fists were provocation
enough and decided to go, coke-confident. He felt drunk and sick and ashamed of himself; Lowndes would pay for it. He heard Axelrod shout something about the picture and Charlie Freitag cry that enough was enough. Walker had lived through some dozen bar fights. He was not an innocent and Lowndes was offensive and, he imagined, easy. He was making fierce faces, his right hand floating somewhere back of beyond in the ever-receding future, when Lowndes decked him with a bone-ended ham fist all the way from Escambia County. There was a brief interval during which he was unable to determine whether he was still or in motion.

“You pack of Jew bastards,” Lowndes was screaming. “You bloodsuckers. I’ll kill every one of you.”

Walker felt for the side of his head. After a moment he concluded that he had not been mortally wounded, but he was bleeding and there was not much vision in his left eye. He struggled to stand and after an effort succeeded. No one helped him. He reached into his pocket for a handkerchief; his hand came out glistening with coke crystals. He licked them off.