Over My Live Body (11 page)

The jumbo sketch pad I’ve got propped up against my knees keeps sliding off with every stop of the A train. “Sorry,” I mumble at Canal Street as the corner of the pad hits the knee of the Chinese woman sitting next to me, who keeps looking down. “Sorry,” I gasp at Park Place as the pad falls on someone’s shoe. I start to look down too, even after picking the pad up. I squint at the drawing I’m working on. I already finished the one of Vittorio late this afternoon after stopping by my studio at West 8th Street to pick up the pad. I went to a back stairway and held the pad just like this and didn’t drop it once. When I looked up, I saw only the reflection of my legs from the knees down in the dusty full-length mirror facing me. Here when I glance up, I see eyes. Closed eyes. Bloodshot eyes.
Beady criminal eyes
narrowing menacingly at me from over the rim of a furled paper bag.

Curtis’ eyes are like this. Narrow. Hooded. I start sketching the lids with my charcoal pencil, trying not to smudge what I’ve done so far.

I hear a deep voice that sounds like it’s spurting from the bottom of a bottle growl, “You drawing me?” insinuating he doesn’t care to be an
objet d’art.

He has nothing to worry about; he’s far from it. I keep my head down, keep drawing. The conductor garbles the name of the next stop over the intercom. The lights in the car flicker and flash on again. I look down at one brown and one black shoe with matching scuff marks. A gust of breath soured by cheap wine ripples the paper in front of me. “You better not be drawing
me
, bitch!”

I look up at him and grab the pad defensively. He reaches out for my hand and wrenches it back. I’m afraid next he’s going to rip the drawing out and I’m going to have to start from scratch. I’m more afraid of
this
than of him hurting me somehow. A totally irrational fear. He’s probably armed and dangerous; he’s probably
wanted
for something; that’s why the picture is freaking him out. He glances at the picture and backs away from it, letting go of my hand, but not before I drop my pencil. Just as the door slides open at Jay Street, the pencil drops to the floor and rolls out of the car and onto the tracks. Mr. Mismatched Shoes chuckles derisively, looking over his shoulder at me as he hurdles the gap onto the platform. “Don’t be looking at
me
,
I
ain’t getting it for you.”

The door hisses shut.
Shit
. I hope there’s a blue-and-white waiting for him when he gets up to street level. If I had time, I’d draw
him too
.

When I show up in class to model, I have to start off by panhandling for a #4 charcoal pencil that I can use to draw during my breaks and all someone has available is a #6, which I can’t do fine lines with, it’s like mush. I have to keep sharpening it to be able to do
any
thing with it until I start the shading. A few students in the class take a peek at what I’m working on.
Maybe they’ve seen him
?

No, he doesn’t look familiar. Is he supposed to, they ask? Is he a model too? We sorely need male models, one woman says. There never seem to be enough to go around. It’s a problem I can empathize with. No, I say, disappointing them, this guy is most definitely
not
model material.

“You’re good,” one of the artists says during one of my breaks. I’m not sure though whether he’s complimenting my drawing or the subject of
his
drawing. His work is
definitely
good. A couple of people in the class seem surprised that I can draw a straight line at all, including the woman whose pencil I’m wearing down to a nub. Most of the artists in most of the classes I’ve worked for outside of West 8th Street have no idea I’m one of them. I’ve been asked more than once if I’m an actress trying to shed my inhibitions to do nude scenes. I
feel
like I’m acting tonight, putting on a show of bravado just to get
through this until it’s time to get home and hand over my drawings to Quick.

By ten o’clock every bone in my body is hurting, none more than the carpals and metacarpals in my left hand. I pull my turtleneck over my head and the label tickling my neck alerts me that I’ve got it on backwards. I pull my bibbed jeans on over it as is; it’s all coming off again soon enough anyway. I notice on the subway coming home that I’ve slid the side buttons through the wrong holes. I try not to notice anything or anyone else. When I emerge from the subway and walk westward on 8th Street, passing shadows startle me. I start looking up and around and over my shoulder again. I press my drawing pad closer to my body and reach in my fanny pack with my free hand for my keys. I hold them in my palm as I approach the entrance to the school in case I need to duck inside in a hurry. I wheel around.
Nobody’s there.
I keep walking toward home. When I finally turn the corner at Waverly Place, somebody
is
there, sitting on the front steps, waiting for me. The light is out in front of the building. I can’t see him clearly. I immediately retreat around the corner and lean against a brownstone, waiting for a car to come by, hoping headlights will help me make out who it is. A banged-up Fiat flashes its beams on a figure with dark blond hair. Another form is coming up the street from the north. As he gets closer, I hold my breath. Even in the dark, I recognize Curtis’ football player build and I can make out that he’s wearing a different hat, a cap with some kind of insignia on it, but I can’t see any more than that and I curse the darkness. “Hey, you,” he bellows authoritatively to whoever is sitting on the stairs, “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for somebody.” The figure sitting on the steps stands up and I recognize Ivan’s combative stance. It reopens old wounds. Just seeing it makes my hip ache. “What’s it to you?”

The two of them, Ivan and Curtis, are standing in the middle of the sidewalk, in a showdown like in the climax of the movie High Noon, and I’m Grace Kelly, watching in the background, except it’s closer to midnight and I don’t have the prop that Grace had at
her
disposal. If I did, I think I’d blow
both
of them away.

A motorcycle picks this fine moment to roar by, flashing its Cyclops headlight on me. I have to back up fast so neither of them will see me. When it’s good and dark again, I lean forward. I can’t hear what either of them is saying now, but neither is backing down. Another car starts down Waverly Place. I can finally make out more. Dark jacket zipped up to the chin, dark blue pants, blue and gold insignia on the cap: stuff I’ve got to remember. Quick should be here soon. I wonder
how
soon. I look at my watch. It says ten twenty. The second hand isn’t moving.

“No, no, get away.”

“Shut up!”

“Stay away!”

I duck back into the shadows. What comes next is Saturday morning cartoon sound effects, somebody cracking their knuckles and scuffling and running and the screech of a car’s brakes. I hear more scuffling and more angry voices and then sirens, short blasts of them that sound more like protests than wails. I inch my way forward and look around the corner to see. Two blue-and-whites are parked at ninety-degree angles from each other, cordoning off the street, a third, a dark unmarked vehicle with a single red rotating light resting precariously on the dashboard, parked on the curb between them.
A cop-car sandwich
. There are three uniforms shining their flashlights up and down the street, catching me in their beams. Detective Quick has Ivan’s hands in his grasp. It almost looks like he’s reading his palms. When I get closer, I see blood trickling down Ivan’s wrists.

“This fellow says he’s a
friend
of yours, Miss Price.” Quick looks at me inquisitively.

“I know him, yes.” This is about the only way I can confirm my familiarity with Ivan without choking on it.

Quick keeps looking at me. “I was about to turn into the street to wait for you when I saw someone sitting on the steps, so I went up the block and radioed for back-up.”

“And missed the whole damn thing,” Ivan hisses.

Two of the uniforms come to the foot of the stairs, and I recognize Vinson and Coolidge. Vinson looks at Ivan, then at me, then at Ivan again. “What were
you
doing here?” Vinson turns to me. “Did you
know
he was going to be here?”

I shake my head. Vinson doesn’t look convinced, but turns back to Ivan. “What happened?”

“How come you guys always ask ‘what happened?’ after something happens? If you were in the goddamn neighborhood and thought something was wrong, why the fuck weren’t you there
befor
e
that asshole cut me?”

“Did you see what kind of weapon he used?”

“I asked
you
a question.”

“You haven’t answered my first one yet,” Vinson says. “What were you doing here tonight?”

Coolidge clears his throat. “I thought we had an understanding that you were going to leave Miss Price alone after the other night.”

Quick looks perplexed. He turns his attention to the doorway. “Why is this light out?” He goes up the stairs and looks up at the fixture, then down at the landing, and kicks something that tinkles against the railing.

“Nice and convenient for somebody sitting here who doesn’t want to be seen,” Vinson says, watching Ivan watch himself bleed, probably deciding whether he should administer first-aid or cuff him.

“Did you get a protective order against him?” Coolidge asks me. I shake my head. “Well, then, we can’t press charges.”

“
What
charges?” Ivan bellows. “If I
hadn’t
been here, our pal who
you
let get away probably would have used his box-cutter on
her
.”

“
Box
-cutter?”

“Something like that. Narrow with a retractable blade. He had it in his hand for only a minute. I didn’t get a good look. Just enough to know it wasn’t a knife.”

“Did you defend yourself?”

“How the fuck do you think I got
this
?” Ivan holds his palms inches away from Vinson’s face. Blood is every bit as dangerous as a gun or knife in this city. Vinson backs off and Coolidge steps in. His hands are sheathed in green plastic surgical gloves, just in case.

“Did you hurt your assailant in any way? Did you cut, scratch, punch him anywhere?”

“Who started it?”

“I
don’t believe
this shit,” Ivan sputters. “You guys were at her place Friday night, you heard the message that guy left for her on her voice mail. Well, now he’s leaving more than just messages, he’s staking her out, you see? I just happened to be in his way. Go ahead. Arrest me. Then who’s going to be around to stop him
next
time he comes looking for her?
You guys
? Ha!” He wrings his hand in pain. “
You’ll
probably be on Sixth Avenue choking down crullers.”

Vinson and Coolidge both look like they’ve got a bad case of indigestion, but not from anything they’ve eaten. Ivan being here
may
have saved me from some harm and he
did
get wounded in the process, but I’m delighting in his discomfiture and not feeling guilty about it. I turn around and look at Quick. He’s staying out of it for now but watching intently, like a line judge at the U.S. Open finals, ready to call the shots when he has to. My mouth goes dry when our eyes meet.

“
I
was here,” Quick says.

“What business did
you
have with Delilah, anyhow?”

“An unrelated police matter,” Quick says. “Routine.”

Ivan looks at me and smirks. “Uh huh.”

Vinson clears his throat. “You’re telling us the guy who you confronted here is the same one who’s been harassing Miss Price?”

“It’s just a voice on the phone. How would you know, anyway?”

“I’ve seen him,” I acknowledge, biting my lip. “It was him. I came around the corner and saw someone sitting on the stairs and backed up so I couldn’t be seen. Then I heard two voices. When a car came by with its brights on, I saw enough to recognize
both
of them. I didn’t see what happened after that. I stayed in hiding.”

Vinson and Coolidge turn to me. “I thought you said you didn’t know
who
the guy was.”

“I didn’t.”

“And now you’re saying you
do
?”

Vinson’s skepticism grates on me. These guys don’t believe anything
anyone
says. “Let’s just say I’ve been
approached
,” I say. I fumble through my sketch pad and flip to the last page I used, the drawing I just finished under such arduous conditions. “This is him.”

Ivan whistles through his teeth. “Baby, I know you’re fast, but this is ridiculous.”

I wince. The cut in his hand may have torn tissue, but his digs at me never fail to sever a nerve.

“Let’s see,” Quick says, stepping between Vinson and Coolidge, reaching for the pad. I did this drawing at
his
behest and feel relieved when he wrests control of it from them, takes the pad away from smudging, sweaty, bloody fingers. He studies it carefully. When at last he nods, I feel redeemed. “Seen him before?” he asks Ivan.

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“You’re going to probably want this,” Quick says to Vinson and Coolidge, tearing the sheet of paper out of the pad, looking up at me briefly as if to ask,
you don’t mind
? Too bad if I
do
. “And I’ll want a copy sent to me at the First.”

“Oh no, you
can’t Xerox
it,” I protest, “I didn’t spray fixative. It’ll
smudge
.”

“It’s
not
going to be on display in the
Met
, Miss Price,” Quick reminds me, which is of little comfort to my artist’s ego.

”Damn good drawing, though,” Vinson says, “For someone who didn’t know the guy from Adam a few days ago.”

“Oh, it doesn’t take Delilah long to do
any
one she has her mind set on.”

Coolidge reaches for Ivan’s arm. “Meanwhile you’re coming with us.”

“Where?”

“Beth Israel for starters. Have that hand looked at. May need some stitches.”

“I don’t think so,” Ivan demurs. The blood on his hand is starting to cake. It looks like terra cotta.

Vinson scowls. “What, you’re a
doctor
all of a sudden?”