Duma Key, Page 35

  "In the building biz, we called that laying it on with a trowel, Dr. Hadlock."

  "Gene," he said. "And the people who were at your lecture didn't think so. You were marvelous. I only wish Elizabeth could have been there. How she would have preened."

  "Maybe she'll make the opening."

  Very slowly, Gene Hadlock shook his head. "I doubt that. She's fought the Alzheimer's tooth and nail, but there comes a time when the disease simply wins. Not because the patient is weak but because it's a physical condition, like MS. Or cancer. Once the symptoms begin to manifest, usually as a loss of short-term memory, a clock begins to run. I think Elizabeth's time may be up, and I'm very sorry. It's clear to me, I think it was clear to everyone at the lecture, that all this fuss makes you uncomfortable--"

  "You can say that again."

  "--but if she'd been there, she would have enjoyed it for you. I've known her most of my life, and I can tell you she would have supervised everything, including the hanging of each and every picture in the gallery."

  "I wish I'd known her then," I said.

  "She was amazing. When she was forty-five and I was twenty, we won the mixed doubles amateur tennis tournament at The Colony on Longboat Key. I was home from college on semester break. I've still got the cup. I imagine she's still got hers, somewhere."

  That made me think of something--You'll find it, I'm sure--but before I could chase that memory to its source, something else occurred to me. Something much more recent.

  "Dr. Hadlock--Gene--did Elizabeth herself ever paint? Or draw?"

  "Elizabeth? Never." And he smiled.

  "You're sure of that."

  "You bet. I asked her once, and I remember the occasion very well. It was when Norman Rockwell was in town to lecture. He didn't stay at your place, either; he stayed at the Ritz. Norman Rockwell, pipe and all!" Gene Hadlock shook his head, smiling more widely now. "Ye gods, what a controversy that was, the howling when the Arts Council announced Mr. Saturday Evening Post was coming. It was Elizabeth's idea and she loved the hubbub it caused, said they could have filled Ben Hill Griffin Stadium--" He saw my blank look. "The University of Florida. 'The swamp where only Gators come out alive'?"

  "If you're talking football, my interest begins with the Vikings and ends with the Packers."

  "The point is, I asked her about her own artistic abilities during the Rockwell uproar--and he did indeed sell out; not the Geldbart, either, but City Center. Elizabeth laughed and said she could hardly draw stick figures. In fact, she used a sports metaphor, which is probably why I thought of the Gators. She said she was like one of those wealthy college alumni, except she was interested in art instead of football. She said, 'If you can't be an athlete, hon, be an athletic supporter. And if you can't be an artist, feed em, care for em, and make sure they have a place to come in out of the rain.' But artistic talent herself? Absolutely none."

  I thought of telling him about Mary Ire's friend Aggie Winterborn. Then I touched the red pen in my pocket and decided not to. I decided what I wanted to do was to get back to Duma Key and paint. Girl and Ship No. 8 was the most ambitious of the series, also the largest and the most complex, and it was almost done.

  I stood up and offered my hand. "Thank you for everything."

  "Not at all. And if you change your mind and want something a little stronger for the pain--"

  iv

  The drawbridge to the Key was up to allow some rich guy's toy to wallow through the pass to the Gulf side. Jack sat behind the wheel of the Malibu, admiring the girl in the green bikini who was sunning on the foredeck. The Bone was on the radio. An ad for some motorcycle dealership ended (The Bone was big on motorcycle sales and various mortgage services), and The Who came on: "Magic Bus." My stump began to tingle, then to itch. And that itch spread slowly downward, sleepy but deep. Very deep. I inched the volume up a tick, then reached into my pocket and pulled out the stolen pen. Not blue; not black; it was red. I admired it for a moment in the late sun. Then I thumbed open the glove compartment and pawed around.

  "Help you find something, boss?"

  "Nope. Keep your eye on yonder honey. I'm doin fine."

  I pulled out a coupon for a free Checkers NASCAR Burger--Ya Gotta Eat!, the coupon proclaimed. I turned it over. The flip side was blank. I drew quickly and without thinking. It was done before the song was. Underneath my small picture I printed five letters. The picture was similar to the doodles I'd done in my other life while dickering (usually with some dickhead) on the phone. The letters spelled PERSE, the name of my mystery ship. Only I didn't think that was how you said it. I could have added an accent over the E, but that would turn it into something that sounded like Persay, and I didn't think that was right, either.

  "What's that?" Jack asked, looking over, then answered his own question. "Little red picnic basket. Cute. But what's a Purse?"

  "You say it persie."

  "I'll take your word for it." The barrier at our end of the drawbridge went up and Jack rolled across onto Duma Key.

  I looked at the little red picnic basket I'd drawn--only I thought you called this kind, the kind with wicker sides, a hamper--and wondered why it looked so familiar. Then I realized it didn't, not exactly. It was the phrase that was familiar. Look for Nan Somebody's picnic basket, Elizabeth had said on the night I brought Wireman back from Sarasota Memorial. The last night I had seen her compos mentis, I realized now. It's in the attic. It's red. And: You'll find it, I'm sure. And: They're inside. Only when I had asked her what she was talking about, she hadn't been able to tell me. She had slipped away.

  It's in the attic. It's red.

  "Of course it is," I said. "Everything is."

  "What, Edgar?"

  "Nothing," I said, looking at the stolen pen. "Just thinking out loud."

  v

  Girl and Ship No. 8--the last in the series, I felt almost sure--really was done, but I stood considering it in the lengthening light with my shirt off and The Bone blasting "Copperhead Road." I had worked on it longer than any of the others--had come to realize that in many ways it summed up the others--and it was disturbing. That was why I covered it with a piece of sheet at the end of my sessions. Now, looking at it with what I hoped was a dispassionate eye, I realized disturbing was probably the wrong word; that baby was fucking terrifying. Looking at it was like looking at a mind turned sideways.

  And maybe it would never be completely done. Certainly there was still room for a red picnic basket. I could hang it over the Perse's bowsprit. What the hell, why not? The damned thing was crammed with figures and details as it was. Always room for one more.

  I was reaching out a brush loaded with what could have been blood to do just that when the phone rang. I almost let it go--surely would have done, if I'd been in one of my painting trances--but I wasn't. The picnic basket was only meant to be a grace note, and I had already added others. I put the brush back and picked up the phone. It was Wireman, and he sounded excited.

  "She had a clear patch late this afternoon, Edgar! It might not mean anything--I'm trying to keep my hopes low--but I've seen this before. First one clear interval, then another, then another, then they start to merge together and she's herself again, at least for awhile."

  "She knows who she is? Where she is?"

  "Not now, but for half an hour or so, starting around five-thirty, she knew that stuff and who I was, too. Listen, muchacho--she lit her own damn cigarette!"

  "I'll be sure to tell the Surgeon General," I said, but I was thinking. Five-thirty. Right around the time Jack and I had been waiting for the drawbridge. Around the time I'd felt that urge to draw.

  "Did she want anything besides a cigarette?"

  "She asked for food. But before that, she asked to go to the China Village. She wanted her chinas, Edgar! Do you know how long it's been?"

  I did, actually. And it was good to hear him excited on her behalf.

  "She started to fade after I got her there, though. She looked around and asked me where Perc
y was. She said she wanted Percy, that Percy needed to go in the cookie-tin."

  I looked at my painting. At my ship. It was mine now, all right. My Perse. I licked my lips, which suddenly felt leathery. The way they always had when I first woke up after the accident. When some of the time I couldn't remember who I was. Do you know what's queer? Remembering forgetting. It's like looking into a hall of mirrors. "Which one is Percy?"

  "Damned if I know. When she wants me to throw the cookie-tin in the goldfish pond, she always insists on putting a girl china in it. Usually the shepherdess with her face chipped off."

  "Did she say anything else?"

  "She wanted food, I told you. Tomato soup. And peaches. By then she'd stopped looking at the chinas, and she was getting confused again."

  Had she gotten confused because Percy wasn't there? Or the Perse? Maybe . . . but if she'd ever had a china boat, I'd never seen it. I thought--not for the first time--that Perse was a funny word. You couldn't trust it. It kept changing.

  Wireman said, "At one point she told me the table was leaking."

  "And was it?"

  There was a brief pause. Then he said, not very humorously: "Are we having a little joke at Wireman's expense, mi amigo?"

  "No, I'm curious. What did she say? Exactly?"

  "Just that. 'The table is leaking.' But her chinas are on a table-table, as you well know, not a water-table."

  "Calm down. Don't lose your good thoughts."

  "I'm trying not to, but I have to say you seem a little off your conversational game, Edster."

  "Don't call me Edster, it sounds like a vintage Ford. You brought her soup, and she was . . . what? Gone again?"

  "Pretty much, yeah. She'd broken a couple of her china figures on the floor--a horse and a rodeo girl." He sighed.

  "Did she say 'It's leaking' before or after you brought her the food?"

  "After, before, what does it matter?"

  "I don't know," I said. "Which was it?"

  "Before. I think. Yes, before. Afterward, she'd pretty much lost interest in everything, including chucking the Sweet Owen tin into the pond for the umpteenth time. I brought the soup in her favorite mug, but she pushed it away so hard she slopped some on her poor old arm. She didn't even seem to feel it. Edgar, why are you asking these questions? What do you know?" He was pacing around with the cell phone to his ear. I could see him doing it.

  "Nothing. I'm feeling around in the dark, for Chrissake."

  "Yeah? Which arm you doing it with?"

  That stopped me for a moment, but we had come too far and shared too much for lies, even when the truth was nuts. "My right one."

  "All right," he said. "All right, Edgar. I wish I knew what was going on, that's all. Because something is."

  "Maybe something is. How is she now?"

  "Sleeping. And I'm interrupting you. You're working."

  "No," I said, and tossed the brush aside. "I think this is done, and I think I'm also done for awhile. Just walking and shelling for me between now and the show."

  "Noble aspirations, but I don't think you can do it. Not a workaholic like you."

  "I think you're wrong."

  "Okay, I'm wrong. Won't be the first time. Are you going to come down and visit with us tomorrow? I want you to see it if she lights up again."

  "Count on it. And maybe we could hit a few tennis balls."

  "Fine by me."

  "Wireman, there's one other thing. Did Elizabeth ever paint?"

  He laughed. "Who knows? I asked her once and she said she could hardly draw stick figures. She said her interest in the arts wasn't much different from the interest some wealthy alumni have in football and basketball. She joked about it, said--"

  "If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter."

  "Exactly. How'd you know?"

  "It's an old one," I said. "See you tomorrow."

  I hung up and stood where I was, watching the long light of evening fire up a Gulf sunset I had no urge to paint. They were the same words she'd used with Gene Hadlock. And I had no doubt that if I asked others, I'd hear the same anecdote once or twice or a dozen times: She said I can't even draw stick figures, she said if you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter. And why? Because an honest woman may occasionally goof the truth, but a good liar never varies her story.

  I hadn't asked him about the red picnic basket, but I told myself that was all right; if it was in the attic of El Palacio, it would still be there the next day, and the day after that. I told myself there was time. Of course, that's what we always tell ourselves, isn't it? We can't imagine time running out, and God punishes us for what we can't imagine.

  I looked at Girl and Ship No. 8 with something approaching distaste and threw the cover-sheet over it. I never added the red picnic hamper to the bowsprit; I never put a brush to that particular painting again--the final mad descendent of my first sketch in Big Pink, the one I'd named Hello. No. 8 may have been the best thing I ever did, but in a strange way, I almost forgot it. Until the show, that was. After that I could never forget it.

  vi

  The picnic basket.

  That damned red picnic basket full of her drawings.

  How that haunts me.

  Even now, four years later, I find myself playing the what-if game, wondering how much would have changed if I'd pushed everything else aside and gone hunting for it. It was found--by Jack Cantori--but by then it was too late.

  And maybe--I can't say for sure--it wouldn't have changed anything, because some force was at work, both on Duma Key and inside Edgar Freemantle. Can I say that force brought me there? No. Can I say it didn't? No, I can't say that, either. But by the time March became April, it had begun to gain strength and ever so stealthily extend its reach.

  That basket.

  Elizabeth's damned picnic basket.

  It was red.

  vii

  Wireman's hope that Elizabeth was coming around began to seem unjustified. She remained a muttering lump in her wheelchair, every now and then stirring enough to cry out for a cigarette in the cracked voice of an aging parrot. He hired Annmarie Whistler away from Bay Area Private Nursing to come in and help him four days a week. The extra help might have eased Wireman's workload, but it did little to comfort him; he was heartsore.

  But that was something I only glimpsed from the corner of my eye as April rolled in, sunny and hot. Because, speaking of hot . . . there I was.

  Once Mary Ire's interview was published, I became a local celebrity. Why not? Artist was good, especially in the Sarasota area. Artist Who Used to Build Banks and Then Turned His Back on Mammon was better. One-Armed Artist of Blazing Talent was the absolute Golden Motherfucker. Dario and Jimmy scheduled a number of follow-up interviews, including one with Channel 6. I emerged from their Sarasota studio with a blinding headache and a complimentary CHANNEL 6 SUNCOAST WEATHER-WATCHER bumper sticker, which I ended up plastering on one of the MEAN DOGS sawhorses. Don't ask me why.

  I also took over the Florida end of the travel-and-hospitality arrangements. Wireman was by then too busy trying to get Elizabeth to ingest anything but cigarette smoke. I found myself consulting with Pam every two or three days about the guest-list from Minnesota and travel arrangements from other parts of the country. Ilse called twice. I thought she was making an effort to sound cheerful, but I could have been wrong. My attempts to find out how her love-life was progressing were kindly but firmly blocked. Melinda called--to ask for my hat-size, of all things. When I asked why, she wouldn't tell. Fifteen minutes after she hung up, I realized: she and her French ami really were buying me a fucking beret. I burst out laughing.

  An AP reporter from Tampa came to Sarasota--he wanted to come to Duma, but I didn't like the idea of a reporter tramping around in Big Pink, listening to what I now thought of as my shells. He interviewed me at the Scoto instead, while a photographer took pictures of three carefully selected paintings: Roses Grow from Shells, Sunset with Sophora, and Duma Road. I was wearing a Casey Ke
y Fish House tee-shirt, and a photo of me--baseball cap on backwards and one short sleeve empty except for a nub of stump--ran nationwide. After that, my telephone rang off the hook. Angel Slobotnik called and talked for twenty minutes. At one point, he said he always knew I had it in me. "What?" I asked. His reply was "Bullshit, boss," and we laughed like maniacs. Kathi Green called; I heard all about her new boyfriend (not so good) and her new self-help program (wonderful). I told her about how Kamen had shown up at the lecture and saved my ass. By the end of that call she was crying and saying she'd never had such a gutty, come-from-behind patient. Then she said when she saw me she was going to tell me to drop and give her fifty sit-ups. That sounded like the old Kathi. To top it all off, Todd Jamieson, the doctor who had probably saved me from a decade or two as a human rutabaga, sent me a bottle of champagne with a card reading, Cannot wait to see your work.

  If Wireman had bet me on whether or not I'd get bored and pick up a brush again before the show, he would have lost. When I wasn't getting ready for my big moment, I was walking, reading, or sleeping. I mentioned this to him on one of the rare afternoons when we were together at the end of El Palacio's boardwalk, drinking green tea under the striped umbrella. This was less than a week before the show.

  "I'm glad," he said simply. "You needed to rest."

  "What about you, Wireman? How are you doing?"

  "Not great, but I will survive--Gloria Gaynor, 1978. It's sadness, mostly." He sighed. "I'm going to lose her. I kidded myself that maybe she was coming back, but . . . I'm going to lose her. It's not like Julia and Esmeralda, thank God, but it still weighs on me."

  "I'm sorry." I laid my hand over his. "For her and for you."

  "Thanks." He looked out at the waves. "Sometimes I think she won't die at all."

  "No?"

  "No. I think the Walrus and the Carpenter will come for her, instead. That they'll just lead her away like they did those trusting Oysters. Lead her away down the beach. Do you remember what the Walrus says?"

  I shook my head.

  " 'It seems a shame to play them such a trick, After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick.' " He swiped an arm across his face. "Look at me, muchacho, crying just like the Walrus. Ain't I stupid."

  "No," I said.

  "I hate to face the idea that this time she's gone for good, that the best part of her went off down the beach with the Walrus and the Carpenter and there's nothing left but a fat old piece of suet that hasn't quite forgotten how to breathe yet."