This Dog for Hire (10 page)

In action, how like an angel! To coin a phrase.

The reporter nodded and kept writing. Behind him, there was a triptych I hadn't seen at the loft. In fact, looking around, I hadn't seen much of what was on display. I guess these were the paintings from the closet. Looking at the one behind Louis, this one
really
was from the closet; it was a middle-aged man in drag, but in each of the three pictures he had his back to the viewer. What was weird is that it looked like early TV, like Milton Berle in drag. It was even painted without color, in black and white and shades of gray. This was neither genderfuck, where there is a devil-may-care mix of male and female, say a guy with a beard smoking a cigar and wearing a strapless gown, his chest hair poking up from the bodice of the dress, nor was it cross-dressing, where the aim is to pass for the opposite sex. This was broad burlesque, but somehow creepy.

The dress was a cheap housedress. You should
see
what guys wear when they do drag. You should
have
the money they spend. But this was a somewhat heavy guy in a woman's cheap cotton housedress and a five-and-dime wig, ever so slightly askew, with a cigar in “her” hand. The cigar was the only thing to change in the three paintings. That is, in the third canvas, the ash was dropping onto the carpet. Unlike all the other paintings I had seen, this one had no title on the last canvas. In fact, when Louis moved a little, I saw that the card on the wall read “untitled oil on canvas.” It was dated this year. Perhaps it was the last series he had painted. Perhaps he never finished it.

I waited for the interview to end and introduced myself.

“Louis? Rachel Alexander. I understand Dennis told you he hired me to investigate Cliff's murder?” I put out my hand. “Can we talk for a moment? Perhaps we can duck out into the stairwell. It'll be more private there. And cooler.”

He nodded, and Dashiell and I followed him out the side door of the gallery and into the hall in the stairwell. Unfortunately, others had gone out there to escape from the crowd and the heat, but we brushed by them and went up a flight, where we could be alone.

“You don't have a drink. May I fetch you one?” he asked in that lovely voice I had heard on the tape. “I guess I shouldn't say
fetch
. That must be his job,” he said, indicating Dash with his wineglass. It seemed he had had a few before this glass. He stood a little too close, occupying some of the space I needed to have between me and any other being other than a baby, a lover, or a dog, but I didn't want to back up because I thought it would put him off.

“I'm fine, Louis, thank you. I wanted to offer my sympathy on your loss. I understand Cliffs family hasn't included you or any of Clifford's New York friends in their plans. I'm so sorry about that, but it's not an uncommon reaction, is it?”

He seemed taken aback at the abruptness and the personal nature of my question. This is definitely a problem I have. I am only semiskilled at beating about the bush.

“No. Unfortunately, it's more commonly the rule than the exception.”

“Are they here? His mother? His brother?”

“I expect not. We've never met, but I did get a call from Peter yesterday saying the memorial service was this evening. In Virginia. I'd left a message for him on Monday, to tell him about the opening. So I don't expect them here. More importantly,
we
won't be
there
. I assume that was the point. He was very polite, of course. He said he'd come by the gallery one evening next week, after he returns from Frederick. Anyway, it's all water under the bridge now, isn't it? The time to be supportive to Clifford is gone.

“So
that
family can and will handle things any way they like. I've talked to Dennis, and we're going to have our own service in New York after the show closes, for Clifford's
real
family.”

“What a good idea. So what's your take on this, Louis? Do you agree with the police assessment of what happened to Clifford?”

“It makes no sense to me at all. Oh, please understand, I am perfectly able to believe a gay man would be mindlessly killed by a stranger for no reason other than that he appeared to be homosexual. But I cannot fathom what Cliff was doing on the pier at that hour. Or, to tell the truth, at any hour.”

Have you ever noticed that people who interject that expression, “to tell the truth,” are often lying?

“What I was wondering about, mainly,” I said, “was the same thing. The night of the murder …” He stiffened slightly at the sound of the word. “Where were you when Cliff left for the pier at three or four in the morning? Asleep? I mean, did he talk to you, say where he was going? Or why?”

“I told all this to the police,” he said. “We weren't together that night. He stayed at his studio. He usually came to my place in the evening, and I'd cook for him or we'd go out, he'd almost always spend the night and then go back to the studio early in the morning, most of the time before I woke up. There's living space there—he was living there before we met. But we—I should say,
I
—never stayed there. I have a sensitivity to paint. And I'm allergic to dogs.”

“Oh, I'm sorry, is he a problem?” I asked, looking down at Dashiell.

“Not unless I sleep with him,” Louis said. He sighed, looked away, and then took a small sip of wine.

He was tall and slender, young, about twenty-eight, I guessed, with lovely olive skin, thick, dark hair, an angular face, almost but not quite too delicate, like a swarthy Montgomery Clift. His eyes were dark and intense. He was the kind of person that gave you chills when he looked at you. No wonder poor, pale, cloddy Dennis was jealous. I wish
I
looked half as pretty as Louis Lane.

“Was it unusual for Clifford to stay at the studio?” I asked after a moment of silence. “Had you had some sort of argument?”

“No, he was painting, he said, and he wanted to stay with it. He sometimes did that for several nights in a row, just went with it. But this time …”

“Yes?”

“He sounded tense that night, Rachel, not high.”

When he said my name, it felt the way it does when a lover whispers your name during sex. He was good, this Louis Lane, a sort of work of art himself.

“When the painting was going so well that he couldn't stop working,” Louis continued, “he'd be on a high, he'd sound wonderful, excited, energetic. But Tuesday night, he sounded, I don't know, funny, like there was something he wasn't telling me.”

“And you didn't ask?”

“We tended to give each other a lot of room in that area, Rachel. I knew he'd tell me when he was ready. He always had.”

I wondered what Leonard Polski had invented, besides his name. I wondered if he had murdered his lover.

Never assume, meaning never assume anyone is innocent until you're absolutely sure who's guilty. You could get killed that way.

“So you have no guess as to what happened, as to why he ended up on the pier?”

“Not a clue.”

“Well, thanks, Louis.” I took a card from my pocket. “Here's my number, in case you think of anything else you want to tell me, anything at all.”

“Research. Interesting. I can't
imagine
how you do whatever it is you do do,” he said. “I don't know what happened that night, and I wouldn't know where to begin to find out.”

“What do you do?” I asked him.

“I teach high school Spanish.”

Unless he had a
relativo rico
, there was no way Louis Lane could afford his Gucci loafers on a teacher's salary. No fucking way.

“Well,
I
can't imagine how you—or anyone—does
that
. So I guess we're even.”

He smiled and showed me his perfect, even white teeth.

“Dennis doesn't want to believe that this is a hate crime,” he said. “But what else could it be?”

“That's what he hired me to find out,” I said, looking up into Louis's fathomless dark eyes. “I was hoping to find a witness, actually.”

He raised his lovely eyebrows. “Really?” he said.

As far as I was concerned, it was definitely a hate crime. The question was, personal hate or random hate?

At the foot of the stairs I stepped aside, and Louis walked ahead of me into the gallery, head high, posture perfect, his hair looking as if he had never even
heard
of a sandstorm.

I began to walk around and look at the paintings. I passed several of the ones I had seen at the loft. There were a few pieces of sculpture, too, painted wooden pieces. I stopped to look at one, a life-size Magritte, and found myself walking circles around it in the company of a woman my sister would describe as perky and a short-waisted, stocky man wearing gray sweats, red-faced and moist, as if he had just stopped in after a long run.

“Isn't this
divine
,” the woman said. “God, it's sold!” I looked at the title card and saw she was right. Next to the price of $8,000 there was a red dot.

“Eight thousand,” I said aloud, to no one in particular.

The guy in sweats whistled, one long, bright, clear note, and shook his head.

I turned to look at him, but all I saw were his broad shoulders and his back as he moved off into the crowd. Eight thousand, I thought, watching him disappear. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place him.

I looked back at the price and the red dot. Clifford must be rolling over in his grave. Actually, Dennis had said the body was cremated, and I wasn't sure one could still do that under those circumstances.

“What's your breed?” the perky woman asked. “Are you in basenjis?” And then she sort of squealed. She had apparently just noticed Dashiell. The funny thing about pit bulls is that sometimes they sort of disappear. Dashiell, who went everywhere with me, had a way of blending in so that, despite his formidable size, he often wasn't even seen, for example, lying next to the table at a restaurant. Until we got up to leave.

“I'm a collector,” I told her.

I lied quickly and easily. Frank always assured me it was a useful skill, not a character flaw.

“Oh, I am too, in a way. I collect basenjis. I have eleven. Four are Magritte get,” she said with great pride.

If I were a dog, my brow would have wrinkled and my ears would have gone up. A dog's get are his offspring. I had been told that Magritte had never been bred.

“Really,” I said. “Did you get the dogs from Cliff?”

“Oh, I didn't
buy
the dogs. My Tiffany was bred to Magritte. She had a dog and three bitches.”

“I see. Is this recently? I mean, are the puppies for sale now?”

“Oh, no. Are you looking for a basenji?” She looked down at Dashiell. Actually, she didn't have that far down to look. She was about five feet tall, sort of tightly packed, with the kind of hair and makeup I used to see on my Upper East Side dog-training clients. “They're wonderful with other breeds,” she said, hoping to make a sale. Who's lying now? I thought. Most basenjis aren't even good with themselves. Magritte was a miracle of good temperament, partly good breeding and partly because Cliff had trained and socialized him so well. “Melisand is due in heat soon,” she said, “and I was thinking of breeding her back to Magritte. She's his daughter, out of Windy Moment. That's Tiffany. I could put you on the wait list,” she said, arching her neat eyebrows.

Exactly what I needed, an inbred basenji.

“Um, who have you dealt with for the breedings?” I asked.

“Gil, of course. I've known Gil for, what, seven years, ever since I got into basenjis. He's fabulous. I wish I could get him to handle one of my dogs, but he's much too expensive for me.”

“Morgan Gilmore? I heard so much about him, uh, from Dashiell's handler, but I never met him. Is he here?”

She took another look at Dashiell, frowning. Of course, pit bulls are not AKC-registerable dogs, so if she knew the difference between a pit bull and an Am Staff, she would have wondered what the hell I was talking about. UKC handlers would be totally unlikely to also work at AKC shows, and if Dash had a handler, which he didn't, he probably would have no idea who Morgan Gilmore was.

“He's over there, see, red shirt, ponytail?”

“Great chatting with you,” I said, and headed back to Dennis.

“Here,” I said when I had squeezed through the crowd and arrived at his side. I handed him Dashiell's leash. “I'll be back soon and explain.” I signaled Dashiell to wait, and began shoving my way to where Morgan Gilmore was standing.

When I got close enough to eavesdrop, I pretended to study
out, damned spot
, which hung starting to his left and continuing down that wall. He was talking to two men about Westminster, which was now only a few days away. It is always held on the second Monday and Tuesday of February, and the hound group goes up on Tuesday. Since Magritte had been found, he would, of course, be shown. I couldn't hear everything, only snippets. “… the best front of any dog on the circuit today.” “Schedules are never a problem—” “—with
that
topline! Please!” “—very typey …” “—the epitome of his breed.” All the usual dog show bullshit.

“Hi,” I said when I could finally get his attention. I was now close enough to see that he was one of those guys who have five o'clock shadow by ten-thirty in the morning. He was oddly shaped, tall and thin, but you could see the bulge of a potbelly pushing out his shiny red shirt, as if he had swallowed a casaba melon whole. His hair was seriously receding, but he had let the back grow long, and he did indeed have a ponytail. And he wore a string tie and cowboy boots. My guess was that they were his signature.

“Uh, what's her name,” I gestured into the center of the gallery, “Tiffany's mom—”

“Aggie?”

“Right! Aggie said you might be able to help me out. I have a basenji bitch,” I said. Morgan Gilmore's smile cranked up to 150 watts, and he hunched his shoulders and head toward me in a mockery of sincerity and interest. “She's pointed, of course. She just needs one more major”—I bet he never heard
that
before man, if he could toss it, so could I—“but I think I'd like to breed her this spring”—I took an audible breath and let it out, the way you breathe when you're twelve if someone mentions the name of a rock star—“to Magritte. He's got the best front. Just perfect.”