Murder as a Fine Art (24 page)

The Bensons had positively glowed when they spoke of their visit to Laura's studio and the painting they had acquired. “It's going to be shown in New York first,” Mildred Benson informed them happily. Her husband smiled benignly at her. He had discreetly inquired of Kevin what price range Laura's paintings usually sold for and was well content when he was told that since it was fairly small he could probably expect to get it for around four thousand.

That had been a brilliant move on Kevin's part, thought Fraser. If things would only stay the way they were right now! But they wouldn't. He took another deep breath and coughed gently to get their attention.

“I feel I should warn you that what we are about to see tonight might turn out to be somewhat upsetting,” he said. “Performance artists are notorious for pushing the envelope — if I may borrow a term — and the one who's recital we are to attend is probably the most
extreme of the lot.” He paused, then added hopefully, “It's not really necessary for us to attend, you know.”

“After what Mildred and I were exposed to yesterday, we're ready for anything,” Harvey Benson replied.

That's where you're wrong, thought the president as he resignedly rose from the table and told them there was time to freshen up before going to the theatre.

A double line of people snaked its way from the main entrance to the jammed parking lot where they stood packed between the cars. “How many do you think there are?” Laura looked back over her shoulder as she and Richard headed for the steps that led to the rear of the building.

“There must be damn close to two thousand.”

“That's double the capacity of the theatre. There's going to be a lot of disappointed people.”

The air buzzed with excitement as people talked about the deadly events in the colony and speculated about what they might learn tonight. As they waited for the doors to open and the outdoor screens to light up, they were entertained by members of the opera program who had decided to take advantage of the captive audience. Costumed singers sang familiar arias and were warmly applauded. Before descending the steps, Laura turned to look back at the crowd. She spotted Marek and Isabelle near the head of the queue, clapping enthusiastically as the singers took a bow. Veronica was standing a few rows behind them, chatting animatedly with a charmed Carl Eckart.

Jeremy opened the outside door as soon as Richard knocked. Cautioning them to be quiet, he led the way to the main floor just below the stage, and they slipped into the three seats in the front row nearest an exit.

Then the president's party came in. Escorted by two young female ushers, they were seated four rows up on the centre aisle. Turning around in his seat, Jeremy caught Kevin's eye and blew him a kiss. Kevin turned away and Norrington, who was sitting next to him looked affronted.

“You're bad, Jeremy,” Laura whispered. Jeremy merely grinned in reply.

“I thought you'd be helping out backstage,” she said.

He shook his head. “Nope. My usefulness came to an end when the props were finished. John Smith may not want to admit it, but he's damn lucky I was around to lend a hand.”

The theatre rapidly filled as the main doors were opened and people streamed in and took their seats. The house lights dimmed and a spotlight picked up John Smith alone on the stage. The right side of his face was covered with white greasepaint, and he was wearing a baggy black suit that might have been meant to represent a clown costume—one of the lachrymose, mournful school of clowns. Bathed in a blue spotlight, he launched into a long monologue in a flat, uninflected voice. Some members of the audience began to stir restlessly as he droned on. As is not unusual with performance artists, much of what he was saying was incomprehensible — to make sense would be showing disrespect to the words themselves. At some point, however, a garbled social comment began to emerge for those who listened carefully. It had something to do with slavery; of men and women being enslaved by an uncaring, monolithic society.

As he spoke, the spotlight was switched off to be replaced with a pale, diffuse light that slowly expanded to fill the entire stage area. On the catwalk high up in the flies, stagehands lifted counterweights from the
arbours and a cage began its smooth descent. In the cage were five half- naked mannequins, shackled and bound the same way they were that afternoon in John Smith's studio. Jeremy leaned forward. “Charlene has an interesting bod. Too bad it's going to waste.”

“I doubt if Charlene thinks it's going to waste,” replied Laura.

A stagehand crossed to centre stage carrying a chair and a naked mannequin. He arranged the mannequin on the chair, spreading its legs suggestively apart, and walked off. Clever, thought Laura. That will reinforce the impression that all the figures are lifeless mannequins. John Smith's monologue was turning into an incantatory rant as he denounced society's debasement of women. The mannequins were unmoved. Some people in the audience exchanged glances, not knowing whether to go or stay. At the end of his lengthy harangue, John Smith produced a huge wooden key and pretended to unlock the door of the cage. He made a magician-like gesture and the shackles dropped from Charlene. She stepped out of the cage and beckoned the others to follow her, but they remained frozen in place. Hands clenched at her sides, she gazed upwards to follow the ascending cage as it disappeared from sight and the lights dimmed.

“They were going to do a voodoo show at this point, but John Smith cancelled it,” whispered Jeremy. “He said he wanted more time for his revelation, but the real reason is that Desiré was upstaging him.”

After a few moments of almost total darkness, a spotlight picked up Desiré standing in the wings. A curious, almost animal-like sound went up from the audience. Hands on hips she stood before them, magnificently imperious. Her head was crowned with a tiara, loops of gold hung from her ears and her defiant
stance thrust her cape apart, exposing perfect, widely spaced breasts. A golden belt encircled her dancer's waist just below the navel, and skin-tight leotards, the same tan colour as her skin, encased her lower body. She was womanhood at its most magnificent.

“She's a living work of art,” murmured Laura.

Desiré stared haughtily down at the audience and slowly removed her gold-collared cape. Handing it to an unseen someone behind the curtain, she began to dance.

John Smith entered wearing a dark business suit. As Desiré flashed by, he reached into a pail and flung something at her. It might have been red dye or it might have been blood. Desiré stumbled as if wounded, then recovered and went on dancing, her naked back streaked with red. On her next pass, John Smith lobbed a plastic bag at her. It struck her on the chest and broke apart, sending up a cloud of pink powder. Desiré pretended to stagger, then danced more slowly, trailing one arm like a wounded bird. John Smith gave a cry of triumph and stepped in front of her, smearing her body with white chocolate, screaming a polemic on society's institutionalized debasement of women.

Listening to his harangue, Richard muttered in an aside to Laura, “Is there a point to all this?”

“It's meant to be a catharsis, not a solution,” she whispered back.

Desiré was now standing motionless on the stage, arms pressed to her sides while John Smith continued to slather her with white chocolate that stood out against her brown skin. Then he began to lick it, bringing a hiss of indrawn breath from the audience.

There was a rustle in the audience as Mildred Benson, her husband and Alec Fraser trailing in her wake, marched up the aisle and out the door.

“That tears it,” said Laura. “Damn.”

On stage, John Smith flung Desiré contemptuously aside and she collapsed in a crumpled heap. Electric lights flashed on, outlining a crucifix at the rear of the stage. Two men, both wearing business suits, marched over to the fallen Desiré and dragged her inert form over to the electric crucifix. She offered no resistance as they strapped her to it. There was a flash, accompanied by a crackling, sizzling sound, and the crucifix was obscured with a dense cloud of blue smoke. The curtain came down and the house lights came on for intermission. There was no applause, just an excited buzz of conversation.

“That last stunt was more like a magician's trick than performance art,” remarked Richard. He and Laura had decided there was no point in leaving their seats and fighting the crush of people. Jeremy had gone off in search of a washroom.

“The two have a lot in common,” agreed Laura, absently, her mind on the way Mrs. Benson had stalked out of the theatre. “Performance art is a pretty elastic concept. And getting more so all the time. It's changed a lot since the ‘70s when it seemed to be mostly people hitting themselves with raw meat.”

She paused, then said with a frown, “I'm worried, Richard. The Centre may have lost that grant. The Bensons are nice but they're very conventional and straight-laced. I can't bear the thought of this place having to close.”

“It won't come to that. The Centre is too important. The government couldn't afford the political backlash if they let it go under.” He twisted around in his seat. “The cabinet minister is still here. He and Henry seem to be really hitting it off.”

“Do you know Mr. Moore?”

“Not really. Alec introduced me when I ran into them on their way to dinner.”

A recorded announcement warned the audience that the play would resume in three minutes. Then John Smith's voice testily announced a correction, saying it was a “revelation”, not a “play”.

“There was a hell of a line-up, but I made it.” Jeremy said, sliding into his seat beside Laura. “I wonder what surprises John Smith has for us now?”

The curtain rose on a stage that was completely dark. Then a soft spotlight picked out a life-size, fibre-glass horse painted a light beige.

“‘Behold a pale horse, and its rider's name was Death',” Laura said, remembering the famous passage from the Book of Revelation.

“‘... and Hades followed him',” Richard surprised her by finishing the quote.

A trumpet sounded off stage and a star fell out of the darkness.

“‘The name of the star is Wormwood,'” murmured Laura and this time Richard merely nodded.

A gasp went up when a shower of stars, almost blinding in their light, cascaded down from the flies.

“It won't be long now,” whispered Laura. “The dragon's tail has swept down the stars of heaven.”

A tongue of flame shot out from centre left stage and was quickly extinguished, to be followed by another and another. The smell of kerosene began to permeate the air.

“Reminds me of the fire-eaters of Jamaica,” Richard whispered.

The shape of a dragon slowly materialized out of the gloom. With a sudden roar, a flame shot out of its mouth, bringing another gasp from the now rapt audience.

“Jesus,” mutter Richard. “Do you suppose there's anybody inside that contraption?”

“It's bound to be John Smith,” Laura whispered back.

“It is,” Jeremy told them. “He's wearing an asbestos mask.”

There was movement on the stage and the light gradually intensified to reveal a tableau with a half-naked Charlene kneeling and holding one of the sacred urns over her head, while four male dancers, also bare from the waist up, stood motionless on the stage. They sprang to life when drums began to roll. Their bare feet slapped the floor as they circled around the kneeling Charlene. Bowing reverently, the first dancer removed the cover from the urn, dipped his torch in the kerosene and lit it from the flame shooting out of the dragon's mouth. In turn, each of the others did the same. Torches held high, they paraded around the dragon as the drums faded into the background to be superseded by a high-pitched wailing of human voices. “Voices of the damned,” Laura muttered to herself as the eerie wailing rose and fell.

Another trumpet sounded, and Desiré stood before the red dragon. In the dim, smoky light it was impossible to be sure, but she seemed to be totally naked. Eyeing the taut lines of her body, Laura whispered, “He's departing from the biblical script. She's supposed to be about to bear a child.”

“Not with that figure,” murmured Richard appreciatively.

The mounting sexual tension in the theatre had become palpable, a tangible thing that seemed to be an integral part of the performance itself. John Smith had certainly succeeded in capturing the attention of the audience, but maybe not in the way he intended. Or wanted. With a clash of wooden swords, the dancers began an elaborately choreographed battle. Their torches were beginning to smoke as the kerosene burned off. Desiré danced among them while they
fought their ritualistic duels. For the first time, the dragon moved. Lumbering ponderously across the stage like a reptilian flamethrower, he pointed his flame at each of the duelling dancers in turn. They threw up their arms in pretended agony, fell writhing to the floor, and lay still. The flame from the dragon's mouth was beginning to subside.

Desiré fluttered her hands in the dragon's direction, as if to reassure it, then deftly took the urn from Charlene's outstretched hands and danced away with it. She teased the dragon, first holding the urn out to him, then drawing it back. The stage reeked of kerosene and in the front rows members of the audience shifted in their seats and looked at each other nervously. The dragon seemed to be collapsing into itself as the flame flickered and nearly went out. Desiré made a spectacular leaping circle around the stage, brushing close to the darkened wings. The dragon held out his arms imploringly and she rushed toward him, holding out the urn. He seized it from her and held it up, tilting it as if to drink from the spout.

Horrified cries of “No!”, “No!”, “Oh, my God!” rang out. The dragon, flame trickling from its mouth, turned to took down at the audience as if pondering their advice. Women shrieked and others covered their eyes as he tilted the urn and a stream of liquid arced out from the spout. With an explosive whoosh, the paper-mâché costume ignited and John Smith was enveloped in flames. The flames reached out for Desiré, but she was saved by not having a costume to catch on fire, and jumped back out of the way.