The Caveman's Valentine (11 page)

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t be.”

They passed on to another gallery.

Leppenraub told him, “Actually, somebody who likes my things and doesn’t know squat about them—it’s wonderful. You never read the art journals?”

“Not . . . not—”

“Oh, they write reams of chatter about my paint-overs. About all the
richness
the technique adds to my work. I’ll tell you one thing, it adds to
my
richness. A painting’ll go for of a hell of a lot more dough than a photograph. Now this one—this is
Bonsai Maple
—this one’s OK.”

A mall somewhere. Flow of shoppers. Up close, a pair of bonsai trees
on either side of a Japanese bridge, which arches over a stream. A child in a
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle mask stands on the bridge. In the pool beside
him floats our angel. His pure backside, immaculate—except that the blade
of a Japanese
katana
sword is buried in his spine, buried to the hilt. A
colony of glowing jellyfish drifts around him in the water, and a thin mem
brane of his own pale-scarlet blood floats with them.

“So,” said Leppenraub, “you really want to know how much I
take
the suckers for?”

He laughed. Shrugged. He said, “About three or four hundred thousand a pop.”

“My . . .
Lord.
”

The ringing Leppenraub laugh. Romulus gaped at him, and said, “But . . . there must be dozens here.”

Said Leppenraub, “Shitloads.”

But he pronounced that self-deprecation with the satisfaction of a sultan. Grinned through billowy hookah-clouds of satisfaction and stared his intent stare and said:

“Price is going to go
up,
too. Want to know why? Because I’m the only one with guts enough to make pictures like this. Mapplethorpe and that idiot Anselm Kiefer—forget them. I’ve got less fear—that’s all there is to it. You understand this?”

But Romulus didn’t hear the question. He was looking at the photograph. At the drowned angel, at that flawless pale backside. There was something troubling about that backside, and he was trying to figure out what it was. What? What in the world? It was a backside. It was hairless. It was muscular. It was blemish-free. But it was just a backside. What in the—

Suddenly he became aware of the broadening silence. Leppenraub was waiting for him to speak.

“Excuse me?” said Romulus.

“I’m saying the whole question in art is guts versus fear. The whole question. You understand this?”

Said Romulus, “Guts I don’t know. Don’t know too much about guts but I’ve been told that I’m something of an
expert
on fear.”

Leppenraub stared. Then grinned. Then wildly laughed.

And in that moment Romulus had it: no heart.

He looked again at the photograph, looked closely. Matthew had said that Leppenraub’s boys had branded a heart onto Scotty’s buttocks. Well, you could see the profile of this angel’s face and it was clearly Scotty. But there was no trace of any brand, anywhere. No marks of any kind, except where the stage-sword went in.

And so what? So Leppenraub had airbrushed the thing away. Or this photo was taken before his relations with his model had turned so nasty.

Or maybe that cop Cork was right: you’re such a sucker for silly flash-ass clues, Romulus, you’re likely to overlook the real deal.

The real deal. Which at that moment was nothing but David Leppenraub grinning and leaning in close and murmuring: “Fear? Really? Fear’s your thing? Good! Good! Then come with me!”

H
e led Romulus to the second floor, and then down the corridor to the last gallery. He touched a panel, and the light came on.

There was only one piece in the room, a huge three-part photograph. Romulus stood before it, and Leppenraub spoke softly into his ear.

“
Triptych,
my latest. My best. September. Just before I went into the hospital.”

Romulus leaned close.

In the first slender panel, our angel climbs a slippery elm. He looks ex
hausted. He carries a passel of bird cages slung over his back. Cages of all
sizes, and every one of them empty—the wire doors are wide open.

In the middle strip, the angel is up high in the tree. Hanging there,
crucified.

But in the last panel, the space where he hung in the tree is now
empty. Way down below, on the ground, a congregation of songbirds pecks
viciously at something. Something small. You can’t tell exactly what. An
organ? The boy’s heart?

Leppenraub was still at Romulus’s ear. He said, “Does it hurt your eyes, amigo?”

“Oh yeah.”

“So what’s your verdict?”

“Oh. Guilty.”

Leppenraub chuckled. This was the sort of sport he liked. “Guilty! Ha! And your evidence for this?”

“Don’t have any, not yet. Give me a while. In the meantime, tell me who the model is.”

“This piece’ll fetch me a hell of a lot more than four hundred thousand.”

Romulus jerked his chin toward the crucified angel. “Tell me. He isn’t the same model, is he?”

“Huh?”

“Not the same kid as in the other shots. Thinner, wirier—right?”

“Ha! You are perceptive. I don’t think anybody else has noticed. But yes. Scotty—the young man in the other shots—he was afraid of heights. So for this scene I used a young man who looked like him.”

“Who was that?”

“Oh Christ. I don’t know. Why?”

“Why not? Why not tell me? What’s the matter?—you want to keep this place sealed up against the truth? You think a little gust of the truth might damage your precious
things?
”

“What?”

“I’m just asking a simple question. What are you frightened of?
Who was the model?”

“I’ve used a lot of models. He was some young man working with our theater here. Ask Moira.”

The blood had started to whack against Romulus’s temples. He took a step toward Leppenraub, and stared down at him. Leppenraub tried a smile.

Said Romulus, “I mean tell me now, what do you think would happen to the value of all these things if there were ever some kind of
scandal?
”

That blew Leppenraub’s smile to shreds.

“Scandal? What are you talking about? Scandal? You mean a scandal about me? You think they could say anything about me that hasn’t already—”

“They could say you tortured your models. That’d put a
big
scare in the suckers that buy these things, right? People might start
looking
at this stuff, and maybe they wouldn’t see genius anymore, wouldn’t see your great
courage.
Right? They’d see just . . . cruelty. Ordinary plain-ass cruelty.”

“Who says—”

“Stuff like this could go out of fashion pretty quick, couldn’t it? Just like
that.
”

He snapped his fingers an inch from Leppenraub’s eyes. Leppenraub didn’t blink. But his pupils shrank to pinpoints.

Said Romulus, “People get a little uncertain, next thing you know they’re unloading these things all over the place. Suddenly you can’t
give
these things away. Right?”

Leppenraub pursed his lips. Twitch in one eye. He said, “You playing some kind of game with me? You want something from me?”

“I’m just asking you a question.”

“Who says I tortured my models? Who? Senator Smires? That
asshole.
I don’t want to hear about that asshole. You listen to me. All these preacher boys and homophobic fascist liars, they’re all going to blow away, but my art’s still going to be here. A hundred years from now, people’ll pay in blood to have my art. Who says I tortured my models?”

“Oh nobody important, don’t worry about it. Just one of the models you tortured. Scotty Gates.”

“What, you know Scotty?”

“But lucky for you the kid got
cold feet
—right?”

“Who the hell are you? What do you want?
You
want to blackmail me, too?”

“Oh shit no. I’m just a concerned citizen. Is all. Is that all right? Is it OK to get a little worked up when I hear about torture? But I wouldn’t want to get in the way of great art or anything. I know he was only a
face.
Shit, he wasn’t even that—he was a fucking
moment,
right? And when that moment was over, chuck him! Show some guts—right, Stuyvesant?”

“What’s this Stuyvesant nonsense?”

“What’s this murder nonsense?”

“You can get the hell out of here! You can take a hike, you hear me? I’m too sick for this shit. But I’ll tell you one thing before you go.
One thing, fuckhead!
I
loved
Scotty! So I don’t want to hear this shit! I loved Scotty like a son. Which is none of your fucking business, but I don’t like people saying I would ever hurt that boy.”

“Then why did
Scotty
say it? If you two were so loving, why would he want to hurt
you
? Why would he want to blackmail your ass?”

“I wish I knew. I lie awake in bed and try to figure it out.”

For a moment, Leppenraub seemed to forget his anger, his outrage. He seemed to be musing to himself. He said, “Something happened to Scotty. Back when I was very sick, so I wasn’t paying much attention to him then. But there was—I think he said something about an old girlfriend. Jilting him or something. I guess that was it. Love—it gets into your head—distorts things.”

Then, silence. Romulus was all ready to come apart. He had a tirade on the tip of his tongue, and he felt a desperate need to let it go. The Seraphs surging. His blood hammering.

But not yet. For Christ’s sake not now when the truth was within his grasp.

Romulus put his hand against the wall beside the triptych and steadied himself, and took a breath, and murmured, “Right. That’s right. Love will do that. Look. I’m sorry. Sorry I said those things. I heard a story. The kid—Scotty—I liked him, I believed what he told me. I got upset. But now you’ve set me straight. I didn’t know you loved him so much, I didn’t—”

“Forget it,” said Leppenraub. Gently. “I do understand. I know the kind of things he was saying. In your shoes, I’d have had the same reaction.”

“But I’m really sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

Leppenraub sniffed, collected himself. He said, “I suppose it’s just part of . . . being who I am. You know? There’s always this wild envy all around me. Always. Even with the people I love. The people I’m closest to.”

Then he shook his head and added, “Just too much goddamn envy. And too many goddamn stories.”

T
hey walked back to the house in the gathering evening. Leppenraub went upstairs. Romulus wandered into the parlor, then into the big chandeliered dining room.

One of the caterer’s maids was setting places. Romulus asked her, “Where’s Moira, do you know? Miss Leppenraub?”

The woman pointed.

Moira Leppenraub was in the kitchen, cutting celery. She was wearing a black sheath dress and silver earrings, and she was radiant. The caterers bustled all about her. Arnold was sitting up on the counter by the cutting board. He was drinking wine, holding the bottle in one hand and a little Dixie cup in the other. Pouring frequently.

He called, “Romulus! Jeez, Moira, this is my old
friend
here! This guy! This guy used to take the theme song for ‘Leave it to Beaver’ and make you weep! Weep for our lost innocence! And then it was like . . . it was like Eddie Haskell breaking into the Cleavers’ house, you know, and smashing the windows and throwing gasoline on the drapes and burning the place to the
ground!
Want some wine, Rom?”

“No thanks.”

“Twenty-five
years
I haven’t seen this guy!”

A telephone rang somewhere in the house. Moira excused herself—but before she went, Romulus asked her if there was someplace he could freshen up.

She said, “Through that door, take a left.”

She gave him a long gaze, a sustained smile. When she turned to go, there was the cut of her black sheath as it swooped down her back, and whatever Arnold was saying, Romulus wasn’t hearing.

“What?”

“I said she’s gorgeous, isn’t she?”

“You think so?” said Romulus. “Yes. You may be right about that.”

Then he went through the door she’d pointed out and found himself in the back hallway. He was taking a left when he heard, behind him, drifting down the back stairs, Leppenraub’s voice.

It was a murmur, but with an edge of anxiety.

Romulus stopped. He listened, but he couldn’t quite make out the words.

So he silently climbed those back stairs.

Halfway up, the staircase turned, and Romulus stopped at this landing. The door to Leppenraub’s room was just above him, and it was slightly open, yellow light pouring out through the crack.

“No . . .
no
. . . uh-uh, I’m telling you, he knows something . . . I just
feel
it. He just about accused me of murdering Scotty. . . .”

There was a window on the landing, a window that overlooked the backyard. Dusk was sketching over the lawn with a quick stroke. Elon was out there. He was on his haunches on a big patch of bare mud thaw, and making a castle. Mud all over him. Romulus used to take Lulu to a playground on Ward’s Island, and they would make a tower from wet sand, and top it with an upside-down Sno-Kone. And then Romulus, to his daughter’s delight, would pretend he was the king who lived in that Sno-Kone spire.

He heard Leppenraub again:

“Yeah,
supposed
to be Arnold’s friend but I don’t know, I don’t know who he is really. . . . Maybe he’s a cop. . . . Well, I don’t like it. . . . I don’t give a shit, I’m telling you I don’t like it at all. I want you to take care of it. . . . Listen. He’s bugging me. OK?
So take care of
it.
Tonight.”

Faintly, the sound of a phone being cradled.

Romulus stood there. He kept sending the command down to his legs:
Move. Flee.
But his legs paid him no mind. The connection had gone bad. All he could do was stand there and stare out at the lawn. Which was turning, even as he watched, an uncanny and pernicious shade of green.