Scarlet Night Read online

  “Shall we go now and look at the paintings you’ve not seen before?”

  He had a great American collection, people Julie especially liked—Levine and Sloan and Bellows. He had nonobjectives too, but you knew from where things were hanging which were his favorites. There were painters, too, unknown to Julie, so that she thought of Ralph Abel, but it was a long time before she said anything. They were looking at a Reginald Marsh, blousy women on the move. “Do you know an art dealer by the name of Rubinoff?” she asked.

  “I’ve heard the name.”

  “I think he buys for collectors with a lot of money.”

  “It’s a common practice. One rarely knows who buys at auction, for example, unless by association. And then there are people in the market, believe it or not, who don’t trust their own tastes.”

  “That’s very funny,” Julie said. “I was just going to ask you if you’d look at a painting I bought. This Rubinoff wanted it, but I got it from the painter. It’s in my shop on Forty-fourth Street. I like it, but…”

  “You would like your taste confirmed.”

  “I would like your opinion. The artist is a friend of mine.”

  “You ought not to seek opinions on the work of friends, my dear, if you’ll forgive the advice of an aging man.”

  “Well, you see, I’m hoping you’ll like him.”

  “Ah-ha! I no longer leave this apartment, you know.”

  “I didn’t know,” Julie said.

  “But if you would care to send it to me with my driver, I will look at it and be as frank with you as you have been with me. And by the time we talk again, I shall have decided whether you are to launch your career as a newspaperwoman on the revelations of Romano.”

  FIFTEEN

  THE DRIVER, MICHAEL, TOOK Julie to the door under an umbrella and waited outside until she brought him Scarlet Night. He was a tough, thin little man with a limp, and with a scar on his cheek that made her wonder if he was a gang-war veteran. She had never had a good look at him until then. There was a lot of space between the front seat and the back seat of the limousine. If Romano never left his apartment, what did he need with a limousine and chauffeur?

  She called Jeff and told him she thought the interview had gone well.

  “How were the nerves?”

  “Under control by lunchtime. And what a luncheon. I kept thinking of you. It was like dining with royalty.”

  “It probably was—of a sort. Shall we risk the weather and go out to Amagansett for the weekend? I may be away again for a few days next week.”

  “Let’s do that,” Julie said. The thought of waiting for Romano—or anyone else, for that matter—to call did not appeal to her, a one-time actress.

  From Alberto to Michael: Julie wrote her account of the visit to Romano before leaving the shop. Then she went home and cleaned house: an anxiety ritual.

  It was definitely time to tell Jeff about Scarlet Night, something she was reluctant to do: the reasons for which she had better clear up in her own mind. And while she was at it, she ought to understand just why she had asked Romano to look at it. Hoping for an opinion which would justify her having bought it? Romano’s opinion before Jeff’s? Be fair to yourself, Julie: there wasn’t time…But how long would it take for him to say he didn’t like it?

  The rain came and went all weekend, so that Julie and Jeff spent a lot of time prowling the antique shops. Maybe they weren’t looking for one, but they came upon an oval mirror in a gilt frame festooned with husks, Adam style. Jeff proclaimed it a real find.

  “All right,” Julie said. And inwardly rejoiced.

  SIXTEEN

  O’GRADY WAS NO MORE able to stay away from the shop on Forty-fourth Street than he had been able to stay away from the Maude Sloan Gallery the day Ralph Abel’s show opened. He had told Rubinoff then that he felt responsible. He still did. One of the things that kept going through his mind was the way old buildings were being destroyed by fire all over the city. His unemployment-insurance check came in the mail Saturday morning and he went by Billy McGowan’s to see if Billy could cash it for him. McGowan gave him twenty dollars and promised him the rest by evening when he’d have enough money in the till. O’Grady meandered down Forty-fourth Street then, keeping his eye out so as not to bump into the old lady and her dog. It was cloudy and damp, but the rain had let up temporarily at least. The youngster was bringing her dolls out of the hallway alongside the shop and trying to make them sit up against the shop window.

  O’Grady was inclined to speak to her. He was also inclined to visit the woman upstairs if she put in an appearance and renewed her invitation, for a scheme was beginning to take shape in his mind in case the situation became desperate…say if the Hayes girl refused under any circumstances to give up Scarlet Night.

  “Anybody home in there?” he asked the child and when she shook her head he tapped on the glass as Mary Ryan had done when she brought him there. Not a sound from within.

  But overhead Rose leaned out the window and smiled at him. She motioned him up and spoke to the child in Spanish, a rattle of orders that made O’Grady queasy. He hadn’t thought of them as mother and daughter till then. He went into the vestibule and waited for the buzzer, observing that there were four bells and four boxes, which meant that the flats ran all the way through the building. The buzzer sounded and he opened the door and went up the stairs. Rose was waiting for him on the landing, all smiles and perfumed to the navel. “I knew the señor would come. Señor…?”

  “Johnny.” He gave her his hand before she went after it.

  “You are a sailor. I can tell how you walk.”

  She drew him into the apartment. Clean and fancy, bric-a-brac and plastic covers on the furniture. He had to admit he’d been in worse places on a similar mission, although he did not care much for the picture of the Sacred Heart looking down on the transaction.

  “What did you mean the other day, not to come after nine?”

  “At twelve noon, you don’t need to ask that, Johnny. I give you a nice glass of wine.”

  He wanted to say no extras, but he needed the time and the talk the extras might provide. He followed her through the dining room with the child’s bedroom off it, and into the kitchen. The bathroom was off that, and was probably in the same place in all the apartments and in the shop downstairs. There was a large, curtained kitchen window.

  When Rose turned her back, getting glasses and the wine from the cupboard, O’Grady went to the window, parted the curtains, and looked out. The tenement opposite was maybe a hundred feet away, with a network of clotheslines passing between the buildings. He unlocked the window, opened it, and leaned out. The fire escape was a bed of geraniums, but he could see the outline below of the same window. In the distance, beyond the sea of broken glass and cans and other unspeakable rubbish, was a high wire fence and beyond it a parking lot.

  Rose pulled him in by the shirttail, furious. “If I want to advertise, I put it in the newspaper. What are you, a cop? A fink?” She was a storm, the spittle flew into his face.

  He caught her hand. “Don’t be mad at me, Rose. Sweet Rose, don’t be mad at me. You scared me saying not to come after nine.”

  She calmed down, closed the window and locked it, and drew the curtains. Then, after the fact, she thumbed her nose at the neighbors.

  O’Grady, to further justify himself and to soothe her with the promise of a future visit, said, “You see, eight o’clock at night is the best time for me.”

  “Eight o’clock.” She shook her head. Then as she thought further about it, she made a face suggesting that something could be worked out. She wasn’t going to miss a trick. “We talk later, Johnny. Okay?”

  She poured two small glasses of wine, Christian Brothers cream sherry, put the bottle back in the cupboard, and led him back through the dining room, squeezing past the large table which held a bowl of artificial fruit. Over the sideboard hung another sacred picture, Gethsemane. He hated to think what he would find in the bedroom
.

  By the time they reached the living room, her eyes had gone mushy as prunes. She touched her glass to his and said, “To love.”

  “To love,” Johnny said and gulped down the wine.

  She took a sip of hers and set the glass on the table. “Fifty dollars under the glass, please. I come back in a minute.”

  “Fifty? I’m a working man, for God’s sake.”

  She looked around, halfway to the bedroom door. “How much?”

  “Twenty. It’s all I’ve got.”

  “Pffff,” she said in disgust. Then: “Put it.” She disappeared into the bedroom and returned in a few seconds with a huge, fluffy bath towel. “Now we take the bath.”

  “Both of us? I had one this morning. I’ll wash if you like.”

  “I do it for you. Don’t you want everything, Johnny?”

  “Everything,” he said with all the enthusiasm he could muster.

  He took his clothes into the bathroom and dressed. When he came out she was waiting, all her treasures tucked away in a voluminous flowered housecoat. She put her hair up again while they talked. “You are a nice man, Johnny. I teach you many things. When will you come back?”

  “Soon.” He wouldn’t have minded.

  “Maybe seven-thirty instead of eight. Juanita, you know?” She motioned toward the window overlooking the street. “When Señora Cabrera was downstairs, she took care of Juanita, but Julie’s not like that. You know her?”

  He assumed Rose might have seen him go into the shop with Mrs. Ryan. “She’s a friend of a friend of mine.”

  “The lady with the dog.”

  “Mrs. Ryan. What about Julie? Is she there much?”

  “She comes and goes. A whole month she was gone.”

  “Is she around at night?”

  “Almost never. You don’t have to worry. And she knows. She don’t care for it herself but she knows. It would do her good, a nice man like yourself.”

  O’Grady was shocked. The boldness of the women today. And the sacred pictures all over the house. Or was it the Irish puritan in him? “I must go,” he said, and looked at his watch as though it mattered.

  She went to the door with him. “Always you ring the bell, Rodriguez, and wait till I come to the window. If I don’t come, you go away. You enjoyed?”

  “Oh, I did. You’re the best. You’re the Rose of Sharon and the Rose of Tralee all rolled up in one.”

  She smiled her golden smile. “Next time you bring more money.”

  SEVENTEEN

  JEFF HAD AN EARLY meeting at the office Monday morning which he felt sure would result in his going to West Virginia: a strike in the coal mines. One of the awards hanging in his study was for his coverage many years before of a mine disaster. He wanted to go, no question. At breakfast he spoke of the recovery of the sick man of American energy which sounded like something out of a lead paragraph. Julie took his shorts and socks to the laundromat and picked up a paint chart at the hardware store. She proposed to paint the wall over the mantel herself.

  The phone was ringing as she went up the stairs, but by the time she had managed to open the double lock it had stopped. She felt it was too soon for Romano to call, and yet…Ten minutes later the phone rang again.

  “This is Alberto Scotti, Mrs. Hayes. Mr. Romano asks if you will permit him to reframe the painting. He feels that it shows to a disadvantage in so heavy a frame.” It sounded like Romano speaking, the way the words were put together.

  “Why not?” Julie said. “Okay.”

  She was disappointed, which was unreasonable. After all, he was looking at the picture, and therefore had in mind the story she had asked for.

  Jeff called to say that he would have to leave at noon, which gave him very little time to get ready. He asked that she lay out his things for packing, among them a dozen shirts. He also suggested that now that he was home, they ought to have a telephone-answering service. Laying out twelve shirts and being home seemed like a contradiction.

  The house seemed very quiet after Jeff had gone, a whispery quiet to which Julie was well accustomed. The mirror lay on its back on the living-room rug, and there it would remain until he returned and hung it. Meanwhile she could paint out the ghost of Felicia’s portrait.

  Shortly after noon a call came which she had certainly not expected. “This is Rubin Rubinoff, Mrs. Hayes. I understand you have the Ralph Abel painting we both were interested in.”

  Off balance, she took a moment to grasp what he had said.

  “Am I right?”

  “I do have it, yes.”

  “I assume you plan to deliver it to me at your convenience?”

  Another snow job. “I don’t plan to do that, Mr. Rubinoff. I bought and paid for it.”

  “But, my dear Mrs. Hayes, no one had the right to sell it to you.”

  “I understood you withdrew your offer.”

  “It was not an offer. It was a commitment, and I certainly did not back down on it. I couldn’t have done that even if I had wanted to.”

  She had wondered at the time if Rubinoff could not be held to his purchase. It would seem Abel had lied to her. To spite Maude Sloan? For whatever reason.

  “But look, no real harm’s been done,” Rubinoff went on smoothly. “One can sympathize with the young artist’s emotional problems. I will pay you the five hundred dollars and pick up the painting at a time convenient to us both. I am sorry. Now you will be even more attached to it. But I am committed to my client. You can bring it to me if you like.”

  “I want to think about it, Mr. Rubinoff.”

  “There is not much to think about, I’m afraid. But I don’t mind adding a hundred dollars to compensate you for your disappointment. Or you might find something in my gallery that you would like. Are you a collector?”

  “My husband is,” Julie said, throwing everything off-kilter, but she was using Jeff as a defensive weapon.

  There was a beat of silence before Rubinoff said, “Then he will know how sacred these arrangements are among painter, gallery, and collector. Do you really want to involve him?”

  Now that was odd. There was a lot of subtext Julie wasn’t getting. She had a hunch what he meant was that he did not want to involve her husband. “Mr. Rubinoff, how did you know how to reach me?”

  “Mr. Abel reached you, didn’t he?”

  “Then why don’t you have Mr. Abel call me? If he wishes to have the painting back, let’s do it that way. Okay?”

  “Mrs. Hayes, I deal with galleries. I rarely talk with painters. I would advise you to do the same.”

  “That’s fine, but I’ll wait for Mr. Abel’s call just the same.”

  “Let me give you my number meanwhile, in case you should change your mind.”

  Julie wrote down the number and, hanging up, sat and thought about the call. Let him have it! Get it back from Romano and give it to him. Call Romano now. And feel like a fool: You see, Mr. Romano, I thought I’d bought it, but…Five hundred dollars. Six hundred. And if Mr. Rubinoff dealt only with galleries, why wasn’t it Maude Sloan who called her?

  She went back to the paint chart on the mantel: for the right mix she was going to need chalk white and a handful of dust. If he had gotten her phone number or the name under which it was listed from Ralph Abel, why not say so directly? He’d been direct enough in saying she had no right to the painting. She had the distinct feeling that he was not in touch with Abel at all. And if that were the case, how did he know to call Mrs. Geoffrey Hayes? She decided to pay Maude Sloan a visit.

  EIGHTEEN

  JULIE RANG THE BELL and tried the gallery door at the same time. It wasn’t locked. Maude Sloan was at her desk surrounded by empty walls. A week ago the scene had been a lot different.

  “Yes?” Mrs. Sloan watched her approach with a look of trying to remember where she had seen her before.

  “I came to the Ralph Abel opening,” Julie said.

  “Of course.” She stopped sorting a stack of mail, mostly bills.

  “
You introduced me to a Mr. Rubinoff.”

  “Yes—that unfortunate confusion. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”

  Which had to mean that Rubinoff had bypassed Mrs. Sloan, ignoring his own advice.

  “Mrs. Geoffrey Hayes,” Julie said. It sounded rather more dramatic than she had intended. But it scored.

  Mrs. Sloan said, “I must apologize for the confusion. It was unfortunate timing—a matter of a moment or two. Won’t you sit down?”

  Julie said, “Mrs. Sloan, I have the painting, Scarlet Night.”

  There was a slow, downward turn to that once handsome face, and a shift away from Julie of the gray-green eyes. As though she had been dealt a blow. “Ralph wanted you to have it…Or did you buy it from Rubinoff?” The latter possibility seemed to lift her spirits.

  Julie sat in the chair alongside the desk. “Ralph called me the morning after the opening and said I could have Scarlet Night, that the other buyer had changed his mind.”

  “The morning after the show, yes. The gallery was closed. It seems a long time ago.”

  “I’m sorry the show went the way it did,” Julie said, wanting to say something sympathetic.

  “Are you?”

  Julie decided she had better stick to her reason for coming. “You mean Mr. Rubinoff hadn’t changed his mind at all.”

  “Not at that point. Today it might be different.”

  “Why? If you don’t mind telling me.”

  “From what I know of Mr. Rubinoff, I’d say he often represents people who speculate in painting much as some men invest in the market—looking for growth stock.”

  “I get it. Ralph Abel’s gone out of business.”

  “I don’t know whether he has or not, but he’s going to have trouble finding another gallery. I called Mr. Rubinoff when I discovered the paintings were gone. I supposed Ralph might deliver Scarlet Night to him.”

  “Mr. Rubinoff called me this morning and said I had no right to keep the painting. He gave me a high-minded lecture of ethics and commitments.”