The Pride Trilogy: Kyle Callahan 1-3 (27 page)

“A limp.”

“But not just a limp. Something congenital maybe, or an accident of some kind. And it sounds familiar.”

“You know this guy?”

“No. Yes. I’ve seen him somewhere, but I see thousands of people every day! Maybe I saw him in the subway and it stuck in my mind.”

He recalled the man watching from across the street at the Katherine Pride Gallery. He hadn’t seen him walk, so he couldn’t say if he limped, but something told Kyle it was the man they were looking for, and if that was the case, he was getting much closer.

“I want to talk to Kate Pride again,” Kyle said as they walked toward the subway. “Olivette Washburn – I’ll fill you in on the ride back – said something about Kate being good to know if you were the one she was promoting, something to that effect.”

“And you’re wondering who it was she did
not
promote.”

“Yes. If she chooses who to have at the New Year New Visions show, she must choose who she leaves out.”

“A grudge.”

“A deadly grudge,” Kyle said, as they headed down the platform stairs to the sound of a train pulling into the station.

Chapter 19

The Katherine Pride Gallery

C
orky Richards was
alone at the gallery that afternoon. Kate Pride had been there throughout most of the morning, but had left for a late lunch with her husband, Stuart. It was a treat she allowed herself when she felt that everything was in order, as she did today. Kyle’s photos were ready for public viewing, the two rooms where they’d been hung blocked off with velvet rope until the Friday evening opening. That left only the parlor, as it was called, for the other work they were showcasing. It was a small room, although large enough for Corky to have imagined many times how it might look as a studio apartment. Anything much bigger than a shoebox would make a suitable apartment in Manhattan, something of which Corky was painfully aware. He was currently staying in a dump in Coney Island with his cousin Patrick, and the commute itself had him longing for the day when he could find some cozy eighth-floor walkup with a Murphy bed and a hot plate within walking distance of his job.

It was a job he’d only had for two months. Corky Richards was new to the city, having migrated from Las Vegas less than a year earlier. The son of a showgirl and one of her string of boyfriends – she never bothered finding out which one – Corky had hated the desert heat and the garish lights, the vice that permeated everything about Las Vegas. And while it was certainly gay friendly, it was no place for a man like Corky to find a suitable husband, whom he would skillfully balance with a career that headed only upward. Was working the front desk at the Katherine Pride Gallery that career? No, but it aimed him in the right direction and put him in frequent contact with people he could step gently on as he made his way to the top. Some of the men even enjoyed being footstools.

He looked up at the sound of the bell ringing. Kate had not installed a door buzzer, the kind you have to buzz while waiting for someone to unlock the door. She considered it cold, and although this was an art gallery, nothing here was of great value. That was the whole point of the Katherine Pride Gallery: to launch those she found promising into the art world, where the next gallery would sell their work for much more. She was a talent scout, really, and a gambler. It didn’t always pay off; some of the artists she had highlighted over the years had gone no further, while a few others had made good after their deaths from drug overdoses. And now Devin, of course, murdered. His works would immediately triple in value.

The man who entered the gallery did not at first look at Corky, but instead scanned the front room, the parlor, and the rope sectioning off the main gallery.

Corky, normally outgoing to a fault, chipper and always looking to network, remained unusually silent. Something about the man did not invite conversation. Part of it was the way he walked, with a shuffling limp that made Corky think not of a deadened foot but of a broken axle; part of it was his expressionless face, flat, almost reptilian, but very handsome. Corky was perplexed by the incongruity: a man with one leg that appeared to be twisted, walking as if his hips were out of alignment, yet the man himself was fit, good looking, even hot. Corky felt himself flush, and that thought, that annoying thought that flitted into his mind every time he saw a good looking man alone, buzzed into his head: Might this be the one?

“Good morning,” Kieran said, walking up to the desk, still looking everywhere but at Corky.

“Good afternoon,” Corky replied. He was strangely nervous, and he had the uncomfortable sensation of being exposed, even though the man appeared to deliberately not look at him.

“Yes, it is afternoon, isn’t it? I stand corrected.”

“I wasn’t correcting you, that’s not what I meant.”

“No, I doubt you were.” Kieran gazed at the roped off rooms. “It appears you’ve got something planned. An opening?”

“The rope, oh, yes. There’s an opening Friday night. A photographer.”

“A photographer.”

“But we still have pieces available,” Corky said, motioning toward the parlor. “We’re not closed. What are you looking for?”

Kieran sighed, thinking a long moment. Finally he turned and looked at Corky. “Do you have anything by Devin? I think that’s his name. Or Morninglight? Richard Morninglight?”

“Morninglight,” Corky said, and he suddenly believed he knew the man’s game. Obviously he was a buyer who read about the murders and was hoping to snap up something before the prices soared. What artist has ever been worth more alive than dead?

“We don’t currently have anything of Devin’s. We may never, actually. It’s not like we’re the executor of his estate.”

“Oh,” Kieran said, frowning. “Is he dead?”

Corky was confused, but only for a moment. He now thought the man was toying with him for some reason. You don’t live to be a twenty-seven year old gay man, grown up in Las Vegas and now living in Coney Island, without knowing the games people play.

“Listen …”

“How about something by Katherine Pride?” Kieran said. “Or isn’t she dead yet?”

Corky felt the hairs on his neck rise. Something was wrong here, very wrong. “Kate’s not an artist,” he said.

“Does she have to be?”

Corky quickly rose from his chair. “I’m about to close up for lunch.”

“So late? You must be starving.”

“Yeah, well, I lose track sometimes.”

“I’m sure you do. We all do.”

“If there’s nothing else …”

“Oh, but there is, there is,” Kieran said, smiling again. The smile made Corky nearly crumple. He wanted to be away from this man as soon as possible.

“I was hoping to speak with Katherine.”

“Kate.”

“If she prefers. Kate. Will she be here anytime soon?”

“Um, no, I’m sorry, she’s out with … the police, she’s having lunch with some friends from the police force, they come here all the time. They keep an eye on the place.”

Kieran turned and looked out the windows. “So they might be watching us right now?”

“I’m sure of it. By the way, I didn’t get your name.”

“That’s okay,” Kieran said, and he began to walk toward the door. “I’ll give it to Kate myself.”

Please, please let him leave, Corky thought, in as close to a prayer as he ever came.

Kieran turned back just as he reached the door. “We’ll see you at the opening,” he said. “You will the there, won’t you?”

“Maybe. Listen, I have a boyfriend,” Corky lied.

“As well you should, Corky. A young man as sharp as you, as fearless, really, I’d say the sky’s the limit.”

With that he turned back and left the gallery.

It took a moment after the door closed for Corky to feel himself relax. He hurried to the door and locked it, flipping around the hanging sign that said, “Back in 30 minutes!” He sat back down behind the desk and let his breathing slowly return to normal. It was only when he felt like himself again, a good five minutes after the man had left, that he realized he had addressed him by name. “
As well you should, Corky
.” But Corky had never offered his name.

The chill returned, and Corky sat for a long while rubbing his arms, trying to get the warmth back. What was that old nonsense his mother always said when he felt a chill? “Someone just walked over your grave.” For the first time in his life he believed her.

Chapter 20

Apartment 5G

K
yle was in
the kitchen preparing dinner for the three of them. Linda was staying in a hotel, which was fine with Kyle since it meant he wouldn’t have anyone in the spare room until his mother arrived on Friday. Sally Callahan was usually the only guest they had during the year, but when anyone used the room Kyle would have to forego his morning ritual of working on his photography and scanning the Internet so as not to disturb them.

Linda was in the living room, talking on their landline to her new love, Kirsten. Kyle could hear her chattering away about her visit so far, their lunch at the Stopwatch, and the plans for the big opening night that Friday. She had not offered to have Kyle or Danny speak to Kirsten just yet, but Kyle suspected they would meet soon, and he wanted to. He would never dissuade Linda from being in a relationship, and he trusted her judgment, but he wanted to meet Kirsten as soon as possible, given she would become part of their extended family. Perhaps he and Danny would make a trip to New Hope in the summer, though not likely staying at Pride Lodge. As much as he wished them continued success, he would always associate the Lodge with the murder of his friend, Teddy Pembroke.

“You ready for the big night?” Danny asked.

Kyle jumped, sending speckles of spaghetti sauce across the stovetop. He’d been lost in his thoughts and hadn’t heard Danny come into the kitchen.

“Well … yes and no,” Kyle said, quickly recovering. “I didn’t want all this attention, you know.”

“Of course you did. You take great photographs, Kyle. You wanted people to see them.”

“They’re on the Internet, anyone can see them!”

“I mean professionally. Artistically. The Katherine Pride Gallery is a big deal, and Kate would never be doing this if she didn’t believe in you.”

“Speaking of the gallery,” Kyle said, about to bring up the dots he’d been connecting since his trip to Brooklyn.

“There’s something I wanted to discuss,” Danny said, interrupting him.

Kyle felt his heart sink. Danny did not often have things to discuss, and they were usually of a serious nature. Otherwise, they simply talked about things. “Discussing” them was on a deeper level, something reserved for grownups who needed to be very mature for the next few minutes. His immediate assumption was that something was wrong with Smelly. The vet would have called that day with the results of whatever tests they always insisted on doing. Was she sick? Terminally ill? He put the spoon down in a dish on the counter and turned to Danny. They could hear Linda on the phone in the living room, as alive as anyone newly in love.

“It’s Margaret’s,” Danny said.

Kyle thought he said “Margaret” and that he was about to hear terrible news for the old woman they both loved.

“Is she alright?”

“She’s fine,” Danny said, realizing Kyle’s misunderstanding. “Not ‘Margaret.’ Margaret’s Passion, the restaurant.” He took a deep breath. “I want to buy it.”

Kyle didn’t quite get what Danny was saying. He leaned back against the counter and waited for more explanation.

“She’s in financial trouble. It’s a very long story, but she lost all her money with that swindler who’s been in the news.”

“The Effron woman?”

“Yes, yes, Bride of Madoff and all that.”

“Margaret Bowman lost her money? But she’s so smart!”

“Smart has nothing to do with it,” Danny said. “And it’s beside the point. She lost her money, that’s that. She’s about to sell the building to these men, I’ve never met them but she’s asked to arrange it. They’re connected to Claude Petrie somehow.”

“Claude?” Kyle remembered having seen him at the Stopwatch that afternoon.

“Listen to me, Kyle, there will be plenty of time for questions later. I just can’t let this happen. Now I know we can’t buy the building, but we could buy the restaurant. It would be enough to get her through, she’s in her eighties for godsake.”

“How much?”

“Do you love me?” Danny said. He slid up next to Kyle and put his arm around him.

“How much, Danny?”

“Five hundred thousand.”

Kyle would have choked if he’d had anything to choke on. He heard the sauce bubbling on the stove, turned away from Danny and lowered the heat. He needed that moment to think of a response.

“We don’t have that kind of money,” he said quietly, knowing this is not what Danny wanted to hear.

“We can come up with half, I know that.

“That’s our retirement money!”

“That we’ll still have,” Danny said. “It just won’t be sitting in IRAs and 401(k)s. We’ll see what it looks like, invested in one of the most reliable, loved, successful restaurants south of Central Park.”

“Yeah, well,” Kyle said, not convinced. “Where is the other half coming from?”

“Excuse me?” Danny said, having heard him perfectly well.

“The other half, Danny, where is it coming from?”

Danny grew quiet, weighing his words. “We have a visitor coming this Friday …”

“You want to go into business with my mother! Are you out of your mind?”

“Not go into business,” Danny said quickly.

“Everything all right in there?” Linda shouted, having heard the surprise in Kyle’s voice.

“Fine,” Danny shouted back, “We’re fine. Tell Kirsten she can’t let you come alone next time.”

Kyle lowered the heat on the sauce and kept stirring, gazing into the pot.

“It’s a loan,” Danny said. “A silent partnership.”

“Margaret won’t let us borrow money from my mother to save her.”

“Margaret doesn’t have to know.”

Kyle thought about it, stirring and stirring. Finally he turned the flame off. “We can ask her,” he said, both resigned to it and dreading the prospect. He already knew she would say yes, but being indebted to his mother was not something Kyle ever imagined happening at fifty-five, and anyone who thought she would be a silent partner didn’t know Sally Callahan. The only time she had ever been silent was the last few weeks when she refused to tell Kyle what it was she wanted to talk about. Now they would both have news.

“You might want to contact Claude if this deal is something you need to stop,” Kyle said.

“I’ll call him first thing in the morning. Margaret already reached out to him. She hasn’t signed anything yet.”

“Speaking of which, I ran into him at the diner. Not really ran into him, he didn’t see us, but we passed his table. He was having lunch with Linus Hern.”

Danny, who had relaxed after getting the hard part over with, was suddenly suspicious. “Linus?” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought they even knew each other.”

“They seemed to know each other well enough.”

Danny filed the information away in the back of his mind, where he could turn it around over and over through the night: Linus Hern having lunch with Claude Petrie. Claude being Margaret’s new attorney. What did Margaret know about him, really? Only what her trusted attorney Evan Evans had told her, and even someone as world-wise as Evans could be fooled.

Just then Linda called them from the living room. “Kyle, Danny! Come, come, I want you to say hello to Kirsten.”

Kyle turned the burners off and the two of them headed to the couch, where Linda was holding out the phone.

“Who wants to be first?” she said.

Kyle and Danny exchanged looks, then Kyle shrugged and took the phone.

“Kirsten,” he said, “We meet at last.”

Kyle glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand: 11:30 p.m. He and Danny had engaged in one of their infrequent but luxurious rounds of sex, beginning with mutual massages. Neither of them had ever been highly sexed, and the comfortable sexual routine that many couples settle into after being together for years was workable for them. It made their sex life something to be savored, an expression of intimacy rather than frenzy.

Despite their weeknight sex, sleep had not come easily for either of them. Danny had been disturbed by the news of Claude Petrie having lunch with Linus Hern. It made no sense, yet the more he thought about it, the more it made perfect sense. He had wondered where these men came from, only a signature away from owning Margaret’s building. He knew altruism was never a motive in business, and whatever promises they made could be broken with the right sleight of hand. And now, a connection to Linus. But for what? Was Linus Hern the man behind the curtain? There were many questions to pose, and Danny had every intention of getting answers to them. He managed to fall asleep thinking of a visit he would make to Claude Petrie in the morning.

Kyle stared at the digital clock and sighed, wondering if he would be able to drift off as well. He had his own obsessions, his own puzzle. He kept turning the pieces round and round in his mind: two dead artists and a dead graphic designer. Two clear murders and a third likely one. All of them connected to the Katherine Pride Gallery. And the man with the limp, who was he? It kept flitting about in his head. A glimpse of someone, a conversation overheard. He knew it centered on the New Visions show. He and Danny had gone to the opening. It was during the show that Kate Pride had begun to pressure Kyle to have an exhibit of his own. Something small, she’d said. Just his work, not like New Visions, which highlighted a half dozen up-and-comers. The deaths were of people who had all been involved in that show. Were they being targeted? Were there deaths Kyle didn’t know about? A list?

Feeling like he was onto something, Kyle quietly swung his feet off the bed, careful not to wake up Danny. Leonard, who slept between them, quickly uncurled and leapt to the floor, thinking Kyle was going to feed him, while Smelly just raised her head from the floor pillow she kept as a throne, glanced his way, and went back to sleep.

He’d put the show catalog back with the other books in the spare room. Flipping the light on, he hurried to the shelf. He’d been thinking too narrowly, only trying to identify Shiree Leone, the catalog designer. Now he realized the 20-page booklet contained the answers for it all: each death was connected to this particular show at the Katherine Pride Gallery. There had been six artists shown. Two of them were dead. Could this killer have them all in his sights? And was he one of the names left off, feeling his dreams thwarted by an arrogant art gallery owner who couldn’t see his brilliance?

Kyle sat at his desk and flipped open the catalog. Leonard was at his feet, demanding tribute. Kyle absent-mindedly reached across his desk with his free hand, grabbed a few kitty snacks and dropped them on the floor. He ignored Leonard’s pounce as he ran down the biographies of the artists: Devin, Richard Morninglight, Suzanne DePris, Javier Velasco, and a graffiti artist duo named Little Bit and Winter. He could check off Devin and Morninglight, they were dead. He’d have to quickly find out the status of the others. If they were alive, he could warn them. If they weren’t, then his thesis would prove correct.

He needed help. With his job, and the show opening in a few days, his mother coming to town, he couldn’t possibly accomplish everything by himself. He was going to call Detective Linda Sikorsky as soon as the hour was reasonable. She would have the rest of her life to run a vintage second-hand store and be happily married in New Hope. Right now there was a killer in Manhattan who was getting closer and closer, and the Katherine Pride Gallery was his bulls-eye.