Scarlet Night Read online

  Rubinoff made a noise of approval.

  Having told it all, O’Grady wished he hadn’t. It didn’t sound like much, laid out. “It’ll be a trickier business, the return trip.”

  Rubinoff aimed the Porsche between a bus and a mail truck, both heading into the same lane. The Porsche shot out front like a spurt of toothpaste. Rubinoff drove like a teenager and he had to be fifty.

  “You pulled that one off well,” O’Grady said, grudging admiration.

  “Tell me a little about Ginni,” Rubinoff said.

  “Have you not met her?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, she’s a wild, beautiful woman. Her father’s a count or some such. He’s well off.”

  “That I know.”

  “She plays him like a mandolin, coaxing money out of him for this artists’ commune she’s set up.”

  “Are they all as talented as Ralph Abel?”

  O’Grady laughed. “Don’t be too hard on the lad. Flattery makes fools of the best of us. Ginni’s up to a number of things I don’t think would interest you, Mr. Rubinoff.”

  “I dare say.”

  “She was on the other end of a commission I had once for an organization I belong to.”

  “Shall we leave it at that?”

  “If you like, but they were great days,” O’Grady said and lapsed into silence. All in all, they had been the best days in his life.

  Johnny, or Sean as he signed himself, was the son of Irish immigrant parents who had nothing in common except their determination to make it to America. With that accomplished, and the seed that became Johnny implanted, the old man took off and thereafter showed up every year or so expecting a celebration of his return. Johnny’s chief recollection of him was chasing Ma around the miserable West Side flat trying to get her into the bedroom. Ma generally made it to the kitchen where she kept the bread knife handy. It was a wonder to O’Grady himself that he had not grown up like Rubinoff. He learned his reading and writing from the nuns as well as a love of Irish song and poetry. Everything he knew that was practical he had learned on the streets. When his mother died, their parish priest had been instrumental in getting him the promise of a job on a deep-water vessel and hence his maritime papers.

  O’Grady was thirty-three, handsome in a rough, sandy-haired way except for the cold blue eyes, a feature he could not abide in himself. That his voice was rich and warm was some compensation. From childhood he had been devoted to the cause of a united Ireland, and it was in service to the I.R.A. as a gun procurer that he had met Ginni. She was his Italian-Yugoslavian connection.

  He had made two successful runs. The third ended in disaster, and he had had to dump the entire cache into the Galway Bay. He had told himself, answering Ginni’s call in the present matter, that every cent he made on it would go to the Cause. And so it would. But deep down he knew that wasn’t why he was in it. Ginni had set it up, and he was her pigeon.

  Stopped at a red light, Rubinoff took a long look at O’Grady. “Now that you have satisfied yourself as to my competence, what do you propose to do for the next two weeks?”

  O’Grady overlooked the sarcasm. “Does it have to be two weeks?”

  “At least. The show doesn’t close until a week from Sunday.”

  “I don’t know. I’m damn near broke financing myself.”

  “You’re not to go near the gallery again.”

  “I don’t intend to.”

  “Nor to get in touch with me. When I’m ready I’ll contact you. You ought not to be in the city at all.”

  “It’s my home, man. Where else would I be landside?”

  “I understood you would not be landside, as you call it, until afterwards.” They moved ahead with the traffic. “That understanding was one of the conditions of my agreement.”

  “With who?” O’Grady said.

  Rubinoff kept his eyes on the street. “With whom.”

  FOUR

  JULIE WAS OUT EARLY in the morning. She bought a dozen golden daisies with rich brown eyes, and then, at Pierre’s, two croissants which were still warm from the oven.

  Jeff had dressed and made coffee by the time she got back; his valise was packed and standing at the door. She had either forgotten or not been told that he was catching the shuttle to Washington. She was sure it was the latter; he was sure he had told her, and both of them repeated that it didn’t matter. He’d be gone overnight and, since they were to have dinner the following evening at the Alexanders,’ they arranged to meet there, Jeff not knowing at what hour he would get back.

  Julie opened the shutters on the back windows after he had gone, and looked out over the straggly garden to where the machines were already humming in the factory across the way. A long row of dark Puerto Rican women worked on pieces of fabrics that would turn into some dress manufacturer’s fall line. At lunchtime when the machines were off, you could hear their radios—salsa, calypso, and rock. You could hear their laughter and their harsh, excited voices. Julie thought about Mrs. Rodriguez over the shop on Forty-fourth Street where she planned to go later. She wondered if Juanita, the child with Orphan Annie eyes, would be out front to greet her.

  The phone rang. It rang a lot oftener when Jeff was home.

  “Mrs. Julie Hayes?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Ralph Abel, the painter. Remember?”

  “Of course.” That was only yesterday.

  “I mean I wasn’t sure I had the right party. Geoffrey Hayes, the New York Times columnist. Right?”

  “Yes,” Julie said, but very softly. She was afraid of what might come next.

  “I wanted to tell you, Mr. Rubinoff isn’t taking that painting. So if you’d like to take another look, come down this morning and I’ll be here.”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Abel…I’m sorry about Mr. Rubinoff, but…”

  “To hell with Rubinoff. I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to say that.”

  “Of course you did and why not?”

  “Look, I’m not trying to rush you, but if you could come down, I’d love to take you to lunch. Understand, I’m not trying to make out with you or anything.”

  Julie laughed.

  “What?”

  “You want to sell a painting, right?”

  “It’s more than that.”

  “But you’ve got to be realistic. I’m not a good prospect. My husband’s in Washington today so that I can’t bring him to see it. Maybe later in the week.”

  “Would you let me bring it to your house? You could just hang it and surprise him. Then…well, we could take it from there.”

  “We sure could,” Julie said. “I’ll come down in a couple of hours and we can have a bowl of soup or something and you might show me some of those sketches we talked about.”

  Not until she reached the door of the Maude Sloan Gallery and found it locked did she remember that Abel had said the gallery was closed on Tuesdays. While she hesitated, a youngster in shaggy pants came up and pushed the buzzer. She could hear the bray inside.

  “Thanks,” Julie said.

  A shrug.

  Abel opened the door. “I forgot to tell you to ring the bell.”

  “Your doorperson did it for me.”

  “That’s ‘Silly.’ Her real name’s Sylvia but everybody calls her ‘Silly.’ She hangs out on the street, runs errands…” Julie followed him inside. “It’s pretty depressing in here today. It’s like everything’s done over in ocher from the cigarette smoke.”

  He looked pretty sallow himself; the look of boyish wonder was gone. And the one gold star stood out like a good deed in a naughty world. The room, empty of people and fetid with stale smoke, hung with paintings that had not sold—even the gold star was a false front—was bleak and lifeless, the light of day garish and cruel to man and pictures. “How come Mr. Rubinoff dropped his option?”

  Actually, the man had said he’d bought the painting. Julie would have thought Mrs. Sloan could hold him to it. If she wanted to. But plainly she
wasn’t going to support herself or her gallery selling Ralph Abels. Or holding buyers with rich clients to bad bargains.

  The painter moistened his lips. “It wasn’t as though he was buying it for himself.”

  Julie walked over to Scarlet Night. The light couldn’t hurt it, no more than light much changed the face of a whore. She could not escape that association. “I still like it.”

  “Bless you,” Abel said fervently, and pinpoints of pleasure rekindled in his eyes. “Did you really mean it about wanting soup?”

  “Why not?”

  “Mushroom and barley?”

  They talked over the soup and brown bread in a crowded restaurant where you could also get hero sandwiches without meat. Abel kept talking about himself, saying he didn’t mean to, apologizing, and going right back to the same subject. But not about himself the painter. He talked about growing up in the small town named after Indian Chief Keokuk who was buried in the park where they held band concerts on Sunday afternoons. In summers he had worked on the nearby farms, hoeing and husking corn…

  Julie tried to slow him down, to get him to eat. He wasn’t high exactly, but it was like that. Maybe he was trying to rise above disaster. Or was he going home, giving up the painter’s dream? He told her about the Iowa State Fair and how he had reached the finals in the corn-husking contest. He stuck his hands out in front of her and they did look like the hands of a corn husker.

  “Van Gogh,” Julie said, whom she had always thought of as a farmer.

  Abel’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Hey.” Julie reached across the table and gave his hand a couple of reassuring pats.

  “I’ve been thinking about Van Gogh all morning.” Abel brushed his nose with the cuff of his denim shirt. “He sold one painting, one painting in his whole life, and he wouldn’t have sold that if it wasn’t for his brother.”

  “Was he a farmer?”

  Abel shook his head and before Julie knew how it happened, he was off on another talkathon. He had copied the Van Goghs in the Chicago Art Institute when he studied there, something his father had paid the bills for. “Like Van Gogh’s brother, I mean the way he believed in me and worked so I could paint. Then he got sick and I went back and took over the store. Van Gogh wouldn’t have done that. He was a selfish man. But you know, you’ve got to be. Otherwise, no concentration.”

  “What about Paris? How did you wind up there?”

  “I sold the store and went when my father died. I couldn’t have chosen a worse place. I tried to put it all in Scarlet Night.”

  “It’s there,” Julie said.

  His smile was sweet; you had to call it that, gentle and sweet. He said, “I don’t speak French very well and nobody thought I could paint worth a damn except the guy I studied with and he turned out to be a phony. Then this girl I’d met, Ginni, wrote me to come to Naples, and boy did I take off…” He fell silent and stirred up the barley at the bottom of the soup.

  “Yes?”

  He glanced at Julie and then down into the soup again. “I don’t know how I feel about Ginni now, Mrs. Hayes. The whole thing went sour on me last night.”

  “Better call me Julie.”

  “Ginni was a kind of patron to a bunch of us. She’s Maude’s daughter, you see. Her father’s an Italian count from a real distinguished family, and when Maude and he got divorced, Ginni decided she wanted to live with him. Anyway, I painted my head off and Ginni sent Maude a couple of transparencies, and the first thing I knew I was heading home to have my first American exhibit in SoHo. Ginni was supposed to be here for the opening. Now I don’t think she ever meant to come. What I can’t figure out…Julie…is why she did so much for me. It almost seems like she was making a present of me to Maude, something I sure fell in with. Or maybe she was just getting rid of me, period. Only I’m not all that hard to get rid of. You ask Maude this morning. She’ll tell you.”

  “Eat,” Julie said.

  The girl at the next table smeared what was left of her butter on what was left of her bread and put it in a paper bag. She got up and sidled out between the tables. Abel looked grateful for her departure. Julie, in her place, would have nibbled at the bread and stayed to hear the rest of his story.

  Abel moistened his lips and said: “Julie, do you have a hundred dollars?”

  “Not with me.”

  “Don’t you have a check you could cash or a bank card?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what it’s going to cost you to take Scarlet Night home with you.”

  “I can’t do that. It’d be taking advantage of you.”

  The veins were standing out at his temples. “Someday if you still feel that way and I’m still around, I’ll take another hundred. Or you can give me two right now if that’s how you feel.”

  “I’ll loan you a hundred dollars,” Julie said.

  “No, ma’am. I don’t borrow from ladies.”

  Julie was glad not to have been taken up on the impulse to loan Jeff’s money. His being home was going to add a new dimension to her conscience when it came to spending money. “How about those proletarian sketches?”

  “Why can’t you take something you like?” he exploded. A direct hit.

  “That is a very good question, my friend. You’re not going to eat that soup, so let’s go.” When they reached the street she shook the hair away from the back of her neck. All the heat of the day seemed to have settled there. She had a number of questions, but the more she asked the more involved she got. “All right, a hundred dollars if we can find a Chemical Bank. Or shall I just make out a check to you?”

  “I need the cash, Julie.”

  “What about Mrs. Sloan? Does she get a cut?”

  “No.”

  “But what if you’re not around when I come to get the painting?”

  “It’s going home with you today. That’s part of the deal.”

  “That’s crazy, Ralph. Does she know what you’re doing?”

  “Julie…” The veins popped up again. “Maude Sloan and I are through, bed, board, and gallery. Last night she told me what she really thought of me as a painter and I told her what she could do with her hospitality. Now do you understand?”

  “It makes things a little clearer.”

  “There’s a Chemical Bank on Broadway and Spring Street.”

  Julie looked at him but didn’t say anything. They started walking. Then Abel burst out: “How else was I going to pay my own way?”

  “Touché,” Julie said, although it didn’t quite fit.

  She wrote the check for cash and countersigned it. She would have to cover it at her own bank with traveler’s checks left over from Paris: they were in a different handbag. Money, money, money. It was wild. The more she spent, the further she got from earning it herself. Suppose she had a job now, nine to five, would she be in the present situation? It wasn’t possible.

  They walked back to Greene Street without much conversation. So many galleries with their signs of welcome out front. She wasn’t sure for whom she felt sadder—Ralph Abel or herself: they’d both lost a little of their sheen in not much more than a day.

  “Are you going back to Iowa?”

  “Maybe. There’re worse places.”

  Like SoHo, New York, the day after yesterday.

  A station wagon was parked at the curb alongside the gallery. A man was waiting, his backside on the fender. He was burly and dour-looking with curly gray hair.

  “Who’s that?” Julie said under her breath.

  “A guy who’s waiting for me.”

  Which was pretty obvious. “Nu?” he said when they came abreast of him.

  “Okay, okay,” Abel said, and then to Julie as he touched her elbow with a kind of urgency. “Look, do you want me to get you a cab?”

  “I’ll get one and come back.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m not going to back out now,” she said, which wasn’t much of a compliment, but stated the situation.

 
Was the hundred dollars to pay a debt? To the character waiting beside the wagon? She thought about how close they were to Mafia country. Which, in turn, reminded her of Sweets Romano, the gentleman-art-collecting gangster—the king of pornography—whom she had gone to see after Pete Mallory was murdered. It hit her that Romano might just dig Ralph Abel’s painting; he might even dig Ralph Abel. Who probably knew how to take care of himself better than she’d thought. The question was if or how to make contact between them without getting herself involved. She didn’t want ever to have to see Sweets Romano again. He was a scary man. Forget it, Julie. Give Abel the hundred bucks and run. In fact, go back and give him the hundred bucks and let the picture go. But she picked up a cab on Houston Street and told the driver to circle the block.

  Abel was waiting at the door. He brought the painting and put it in at her feet, face forward. The back was reinforced with plywood and still bore the stamp of U.S. Customs as well as the clasps by which it had hung on the gallery track.

  “Don’t give it too much light,” he said, and took the bank envelope from Julie’s hand. Inside were five twenties.

  They didn’t even shake hands or wish each other luck. Nor did she look back. Not for anything would she have looked back.

  FIVE

  JULIE KNEW BEFORE THE cab turned into Sixteenth Street that she’d been kidding herself. Scarlet Night no more belonged in that living room than a bag lady. She kept the cab waiting while she ran upstairs and got the traveler’s checks. And the keys to Forty-fourth Street. Back in the cab again, she wondered just how strong in her subconscious the association between the shop and the painting was. It was something she would have explored in therapy: the one sure thing her doctor would have made her fish for was the reason she had bought Scarlet Night. Jeff would ask the same question if she ever got around to telling him about it.

  Because I like it. Okay. That would work with Jeff anyway.

  “Welcome home,” she said and set the painting against the chair in the front room of the shop. The floor was cluttered with junk mail beneath the letter drop. She scattered it with her foot but let it lie and went out again, having just time to make the bank before it closed. There was no sign of the child, Juanita, no mangled dolls in the hallway when she looked in. She hadn’t thought she would miss her, but she did.