Mortal Love (23 page)

Then he must have slept again, because he was awakened suddenly, heart-poundingly, by a cry—a long, low wail followed by three deep hoots, like a foghorn.

But it was not a horn. It was an owl, a sound he had never heard before but recognized from countless movies. He looked up to see Larkin sitting bolt upright in bed, staring with wide, terrified eyes at the window.

“It's okay,” he said sleepily, and tried to draw her back beside him. His cock was hard again; he leaned over and kissed her neck, her skin salty with dried sweat. “It's just an owl. It probably escaped from the zoo. . . .”

And he was asleep once more, not even desire enough to keep him watchful. When he woke the third time, it was for good. He was alone in bed on a narrow boat in the Regents Canal. Someone had left a window open. Wet willow leaves were strewn across the coverlet and plastered against the walls. Gray, rainy light filled the room. He clutched the blanket to him, shivering, looked around, but saw no sign of Larkin.

“Larkin? Larkin, you there?”

It was not until he swung his feet over the edge of the bed to stand that he saw the floor was covered with acorns: scores of them, some whole, some crushed so that their creamy innards protruded from brown shells, others already starting to sprout, small green fingers plying at the chill morning air, and, drifting among them, a few brown feathers flecked with white.

Sketches to Illustrate the Passions

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Beckoning Fair One

I
was in the city when
my brother, Simon, called me about the painting, staying in the East Village with Oona, a model-cum-actress I'd met when I was designing the sets for the London run of
St. Elmo's Fire.
We carried on a desultory affair made slightly desperate by her methamphetamine habit and the vespertine light of that long, autumnal year. I liked junkies and addicts, sought them out, in fact: they asked little of me sexually, which was good because my medications killed my libido; they hoarded their deepest emotions and energies for drugs; they didn't look askance at the contents of my medicine cabinet and seldom bothered to raid it. Oona broke up with me that winter, but by the time I went back to the States in March, she'd returned as well.

I was supposed to do sets for the New York run of
St. Elmo.
My years with Red had honed my carpentry skills, and while I never took up drawing again, I was a middling set designer. But backing for the show fell through, and I was left with no job and no place to stay—not for the first time, I should add.

Still, I hung around the tiny storefront theater, doing some preliminary sketches for someone I knew who was trying to mount
The Tempest.
Nights I spent with Oona. She had a sublet on Houston but was afraid of being alone; she seemed happy enough to let me stay for a while. We fucked once or twice for old times' sake, but after a few days managed not to see much of each other. That suited me just fine.

My brother tracked me down at the theater. I refused to carry a cell phone, just like I refused to keep an apartment or any forwarding address. Anyone who really needed to find me knew to track me down through Red, who was the only person I kept in touch with—though I hadn't seen much of him in the last few years and hadn't been back to Aranbega since my mid-twenties. Simon left increasingly angry messages at the theater box office, but it was still three days before I called him.

“How come you didn't tell me you were back?” he demanded. “Where are you staying?”

“With Oona. A great big howdy to you, too, Simon.”

“Is she in rehab? Jesus Christ, Val, I hope you're not sleeping with her.”

“I'm hanging up, Simon.”

“Okay, wait! I'm sorry. Here's the deal: we have to talk.”

“So talk.”

“Not that kind of talk. Face talk. Business, Val. Family stuff.”

I sighed and ran a hand across my chin. “I'm busy, Simon. I—”

“How can you be busy? Listen, I got you a ticket on the four thirty-five shuttle out of La Guardia. You can come back first thing tomorrow—”

“Simon. I can't. It's impossible.” Someone started banging on the door; I kicked it, hard enough to splinter the plywood. Whoever was on the other side gasped, then left. “You—”

“Tonight. Dinner. I'll have a car get you at the airport. You can catch the last shuttle back. Or take the train if you don't want to fly. Just get here. And don't bring Oona,” he said, and hung up.

I stood in the tiny room, staring at the hole I'd made in the door.

“Goddamn it,” I said. I went to find the stage manager, told her I had a family emergency that meant I had to go to D.C. I didn't bother with the E-ticket: when I'd flown out of Heathrow, I was stopped and searched three times, based on my looks and erratic travel history. Instead I arranged for a ticket on the Metroliner. I wasn't supposed to drink with my medication, but I bought a bottle of Jack Daniel's for the trip and split.

Dinner was at
a tiny Ethiopian restaurant in a ramshackle house off Logan Circle. Out back was a small garden with two plastic tables and three chairs. The brick walls were overgrown with wisteria, the dense blossoms strewn across the ground like lavender foam. It felt like every place did in those days, at once desolate and precious, the end of another century, not the beginning. There were empty bullet casings scattered among the fallen blossoms, and tattered advertisements for opportunities to improve your English at home.

But the food was good. We were alone, except for a silent young man who brought us injera and tibs and zilzil wat, set on a wooden tray that completely covered the table. The place had no liquor license—for all I knew it had no restaurant license—but Simon had brought two bottles of expensive Médoc. The food was so spicy I could hardly taste the wine, but I drank it anyway, finishing most of a bottle by myself, while my brother sipped abstemiously from his glass.

“So,” I said, reaching for the second bottle and a corkscrew, “nice dinner. What the hell am I doing here, Simon?”

My brother mixed a raw egg into a little mound of raw beef, spooned red chili pepper onto it, and began eating with his fingers. “Someone's made an offer on one of Radborne's paintings.”

“How much?”

“Four million.”

“Jesus.” I yanked the cork from the bottle, too hard. Wine arced onto the platter, red chili and raw beef dissolving into a hundred-dollar Médoc. “Four million dollars?”

“Yep.”

For the first time all evening, Simon grinned. He was seventeen years older than me, his handsome red face collapsing from drink though he'd managed to keep his muscle tone by working out every day. Just over six feet, he was a good six inches shorter than I was. No one had ever mistaken us for brothers, or even acquaintances. He wore his hair long, like mine, but his was thin and streaked with gray and always smelled slightly rank, from some weird human-placenta-derived shampoo that, ounce for ounce, cost more than cocaine. He wore bespoke suits, slightly shabby, and a ring made from the teeth of a shrunken head he'd bought in Borneo years ago. He looked more like an aging drug lord than a lawyer.

“That's too much money,” I said, pouring myself more wine. “Who is it?”

“Guy named Russell Learmont.”

“Never heard of him.”

“You should have. He's the CEO of Winsoame Pharmaceuticals. Your medicine's probably made him rich. Here.”

He handed me a bound sheaf of pages thick as a porterhouse steak. I glanced at the cover.

Underneath was the date, Russell Learmont's name, and those of about twelve attorneys.

“Looks like you better get some backup, Simon,” I said, and began leafing through it. There was a lot of legal mumbo jumbo and a lot of columns adding up to a lot of money. I looked in disgust at an eight-by-ten of Learmont, a thin, angular-faced Captain of Industry in his late sixties, his teeth bleached blue-white, with the calculated smile and sly eyes of a Preston Sturges con man.

    “Christ,” I said, and turned the page.

“I don't get it. Who is this guy Learmont?”

“He collects outsider art. Lives in London.”

“Do you know him?”

“We've met a few times on the island. He owns a yacht. You've probably seen it—four-master.”

“Four-master?”

I looked down at the photograph of my grandfather's painting. The colors had that weird pink tinge you get in old magazine photos—Tristan on the left-hand panel, Iseult on the right, arms upraised so that each held one handle of an ornate silver goblet. One half of the goblet was on each of the panels; the hinges in the center had been made to form part of the goblet, a trompe l'oeil effect. The image was too small for me to get a good look at the painting, but something about the figure of Iseult sent a wave of unease over me.

“Outsider art?” I said. “Radborne isn't
remotely
outsider art.”

“You read it. And I'll tell you something else—between you and me, it ain't worth four million either. Maybe two.”

“That Parrish only went for four million. And Radborne's not Maxfield Parrish. Or Henry Darger.” I handed the contract back to him. “But you forgot one little thing, Simon. We don't actually own
The Love Philtre.”

“We own half of it.”

“It says here it was lost.”

Simon's grin grew broader. “Red found it. Well, part of it—the woman. In the boathouse, where all that stuff was left when Radborne's boat went down. About a year ago. He was the one mentioned it to Learmont when he was on Aranbega last summer.” Simon leaned forward to pour himself more wine. “He has the other half.”

“You're kidding? Learmont?”

“Yup. I have no idea how he got it, but he owns it.”

Nowadays Radborne would have had an entire medicine cabinet full of Winsoame pharmaceuticals. By the end of his life, his increasingly tenuous connection to reality had frayed, to the point where he was giving away paintings and sketches in lieu of paying tradesmen's bills. Over the years some had made their way back to Goldengrove, returned by generous owners who wanted the works to remain in the family. A few were bought when Simon had funds to afford them; in one memorable instance, two of Radborne's oils showed up at a yard sale in Cushing, where a family friend bought them for five dollars, then presented them to Simon as a birthday present. Reading about
The Love Philtre
just now, I'd assumed it had ended up in a private collection somewhere, or one of those drab little regional museums displaying Abenaki baskets and minor works by minor American painters like my grandfather.

“I'll tell you, Val, this guy has got a wild hair up his ass over this.” Simon reached to stab the color print in my hand. “I'd like to get this over with as soon as possible. I don't need to tell you our portfolio's taken a beating.”

“No, you don't need to tell me.” I leaned back in my chair, the plastic straining under me. I was bored and tired and ready to leave. “So sell it. What, is there a provision that you need my permission or something? Well, you got it. Now I have to go.”

I started to get up, but Simon grabbed my arm. “Wait. Val, listen—I don't need your permission, nothing like that. But I do need a favor.”

“Oh. Right.”

I stared at him, waiting, was rewarded by the sight of my brother doing his best Innocent Weasel impression. “Nothing major,” he said. “Just, Learmont wants this delivered to him in London this week.”

“So call FedEx.”

“Well, he wants it delivered to him by hand.”

“Hire a courier.”

“Val.” Simon leaned back, smiling. “Look, it's not a big deal. He and I would just both feel a lot better about this if
you
could do it—someone we could trust.”

I started to laugh. Simon gave me a thin smile. “All right, he doesn't know you—but this is a no-brainer, Val! Actually, it was Red's idea to send you. Learmont had suggested he do it, but when I talked to Red, he told me to ask you. Learmont has his own Gulfstream; it'll meet you—wherever. New York, you can catch it there. Or here. Whatever you want, as long as it's in the next day or two. The plane brings you to London, you deliver the painting, he wires the money into the trust. That's it.”

“I'm busy, Simon.”

He laughed. “Pull the other one, Valentine.”

“I just got
back
from London, Simon. Why don't you go?”

“I wish I could. I've got a case coming up on Friday, can't get a deferral.”

I shook my head. “Look, this is just too much of a pain in the ass for me right now, okay? I don't need the goddamn money. I've got something lined up—”

“Val, listen to me.” Simon took a deep breath. “There's something else. Learmont's offered five million for our half of Aranbega. Goldengrove and the outbuildings, the hundred acres. I told him we don't want to sell right now, but we really have no choice, Val. The taxes are killing us.”

“Goddamn it.” My hands clenched; I stared down at my feet. “So. You sell to this asshole and Red gets evicted?”

Simon shrugged. “Val, Red's not around much anymore. I don't know where he goes, but he's got his own life. Who can blame him? He doesn't want to stay up there in the middle of nowhere. Do you? Russell Learmont wants to set up a little medieval fiefdom … well, let him.”

He sighed, smoothed the sparse hair back from his forehead. All of a sudden he looked like photos of our father, exhausted by his pathetic excuse for a life. “Listen, he really wants that painting. I say, let's take the money and run, hold him off for a few years, wait till the market's better, and then sell Goldengrove to him. If he still wants it.”