A Paradise for Fools Read online

  Of course the owner will also find himself responsible for his assigned portions of the costs of the auction house’s regular business expenses: printing, storage, photography, shipping, insurance. Also, between them, the seller and the buyer must fork over the auction house’s commission. Somebody has to pay for the buildings, the staff, the catalogs, all that razzle dazzle, the receptions…

  Meanwhile the winning bid might be suppressed by collusion amongst buyers, who then auction the work privately among themselves.

  Footsteps on the stairs. A woman’s. Fred heaved himself upright, rolling the Nashua Sentinel into a cylinder.

  Chapter Thirty

  The hair was red in a welter of fat curls. Aside from the wig, the woman was underdressed. Stephanie, from Kenzo’s in Nashua. Bright yellow cut-off tank top; red shorts that barely qualified, with tendrils of colored patterns wreathing out from under them like pubic hair gone berserk. The opaque gray plastic military raincoat she carried was cruelly unnecessary in this relentless heat. Fred, at the top of the stairs, stepped aside to give her room. Stephanie stared at him blankly, swinging a string shoulder bag.

  “Kenzo sent me,” she said.

  Having disguised herself in the red wig, Stephanie had become so much another person that she failed to recognize the man who had been in her shop only the day before.

  “Kenzo?” Fred said.

  “Don’t fuck with me, Arthur,” she said. She made it sound cute, but with an edge of dangerous irritation. Then, trying a warm glance that originated somewhere in the shorts, she suggested, “Let’s talk inside. I’m Angela.”

  Fred said, “I’m going out.”

  “Because,” Stephanie maneuvered against him on the top stair, “there’s not so many people in the country can do the kind of beautiful work you do. When he called the other night, that didn’t go well. He admits that. Taking you by surprise. But see, Kenzo had been wondering where you are. You’re not easy to find since you changed to your new last name. I like it. Pendragon. It sounds like out of Star Wars. What he says. Kenzo. What Kenzo says. Well, listen. Can we talk? Inside?”

  Fred sat on the top stair and motioned her to sit next to him. Instead she backed down a couple of stairs and stood at a level that would put his eyes and her calculating breasts at the same level. She said, “Go ahead. A person like you. I heard all about you. Kenzo keeps saying…what happened…and it was all a mistake…and I’ll bet, I know, what you know, you could go over my whole entire body and pick out Kenzo’s work from all the other ones. Like on this breast”—she uncovered her right one—“the chrysanthemum…”

  “That’s Kenzo all right,” Fred said. It was very Japanese, an embracing, supporting cup of pink and red petals in carefully shaded gradations. The nipple held the flower’s center.

  “Kenzo’s, like, sorry,” Stephanie said. “What he said, and taking you by surprise. And old times. Those other things…”

  Not Fred’s business, but the chrysanthemum was well done, and a good fit for the breast, itself better than adequate for the purpose.

  “Getting everything coordinated,” Fred said. “It must be a puzzle for a person who moves around the country. To me, looking quickly, I see hints of Tampa, West Palm Beach. But I have to say, some of your collection is so generic…”

  “I started young,” Stephanie said. “What Kenzo wants…” she trailed off. “He’s sorry,” she decided. “Hot temper. There’s nothing to worry about. Can we go inside? And don’t be surprised that Kenzo found out where you are now. A person that works like you do. Word gets around. It’s a small world.”

  Fred said, “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  Stephanie covered the breast as if it had been forgotten until now. “As long as I’m here,” she said, “can I see some of your work? Show me—it’s famous—the Zen circle Kenzo put on your shoulder that time, when you broke your cherry. It’s famous You’re famous, Arthur, in Nashua. You’ll be famous in the world, Kenzo says. He can help. Listen, Arthur, Kenzo says he’s sorry. What he did. What he said. Let’s go inside.”

  “Life is complex,” Fred said.

  “Because you know how he can be. Flies off the handle. Maybe, he says, he didn’t. What he says now, the Zen thing. Tippy. Old history. Nobody’s worth…A person should be able to share. Things. Talents. Money. He’ll work it with you, and you need him. He admits he was, there was, jealousy involved. What Kenzo said, no hard feelings, and what he says is he’s sorry, what he did that time, and we should, he should, learn to share. Even people. Me.”

  “You mention Tippy,” Fred said. “Tippy Artoonian.”

  Stephanie leaned closer. The smell of old hot buttered popcorn emanated from her wig; from the rest of her, an advancing scent of woman. “How many Tippies can there be? I’m new in town, but I’ve seen her dancing at the Moonglow when we happen to go there even if it’s cheaper to drink at home, quieter. Kenzo told me, ‘Tell Arthur, no hard feelings. Show Arthur there’s no hard feelings. Zen. No jealousy. Do whatever he wants. The Zen thing. All those positions?‘

  “Then we’ll talk business. First I thought, ‘I don’t mind saying, who does Kenzo think he is?‘ I’m not like that, but, now I’m here, everything I’ve heard about your talent—Arthur draws like God would if he’d been to school, everyone says—So, now I see you…can we go inside?

  “Also, we’re getting to know each other, starting to, this other idea I have, and I’ll pay for it. My right butt cheek. I’ve been saving it for something it sounds like you can do, not Kenzo’s style. Kenzo’s all Japanese. I’m a mixture. I want something old fashioned like you do, but weird.”

  Stephanie lifted a foot and placed it between Fred’s loafers, thereby inserting a colorful knee between his own. “The truth is, that picture Tippy gave you, that she had…”

  The knee made contact. Stephanie’s head came closer to Fred’s.

  “I’ll come in, have something cold, look at ideas. Drawings. Tippy’s painting. Kenzo says—first get to know each other better. I didn’t think you’d be this big, Arthur, from what Kenzo said. I like big. I go for big in a big way. After, if you have time, I’m free, we’ll think about the place I’ve been keeping for you on my butt. Kenzo is jealous. He told me you were kind of weedy.”

  “This hot clear day, why the raincoat?” Fred said.

  “Some places, shit, you need a quick cover-up,” Stephanie said. “Like on the bus? It’s not like there’s a law, but public places, straights see your ink, they look at you like you’re an escaped convict. I have never done hard time. It’s fiendish hot, you got that right. I can’t wait to get…also, can I use your phone? I’d love a drink. Listen, you are not catching the hint. A lady likes to beat around the bush, see how the land lies, all that. But now I see you…Kenzo says, ‘Look the guy over first, sure. Then decide. He looks like he doesn’t but don’t worry, Arthur goes for women. He’s slow to pick up the idea? Tell him flat out, Kenzo sent me, ‘Kenzo said. It’s a Zen thing. I’m a peace offering. Whatever you want me to do.

  “So can we for God’s sake go in? I have to take a leak. Use the phone. Tell Kenzo it’s OK again, between you and he. Between him and you. You can do a deal, after all. Between the both of the two of you.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “I don’t have a key,” Fred said. “I’m waiting for Arthur.”

  “Shit.” Stephanie drew back hastily. “Shit! You’re not Arthur? I waste the whole fucking spiel on some random guy. When’s Arthur due?” Sweat trickled from under the wig, down the sides of her face. Nevertheless she had become chilly, distant, almost businesslike. “Do me a favor. Forget everything I said. I’m a practical joke. Stripagram. Doesn’t mean…You see Arthur before I do, I want to be a surprise, OK?”

  Fred shrugged and spread his arms. He said, “I’m slow catching on. Don’t worry about it.” He started down the stairs, squeezing
past Stephanie to do so.

  “Shit,” Stephanie said again. “Listen, I saw black people in the street and sidewalks. What black people means to me is barbecue. You happen to know, around here, a place I can get decent barbecue? I’m waiting for Arthur? Where I can also take a leak?”

  “Ask a local,” Fred said. “I’m not from around here.”

  “Shit. Are you Nashua? You’re, now I look at you…Do I know you?”

  “Doesn’t seem like it,” Fred said.

  “I’m coming back after I take a leak, get something to eat. I’ll tell him you were here. What was your name again?”

  “That’s OK,” Fred said.

  ***

  Fred’s car was pleasantly cooled by forced air, as long as he cranked a window open. That also helped with the smell. He’d jostled back to Charles Street on the subway, then walked to Clayton’s on Mountjoy for his car. He reached the Moonglow Lounge before ten o’clock, and easily found a place in the parking area of the mall, whose businesses were mostly closed down for the night. There might be seventeen cars and pickup trucks parked within the glow of the Moonglow’s corona of diffuse light.

  The place had been intended for a larger clientele, and must do better on a weekend. Fred found a little table “next to the action,” as the hostess said. Three geriatric male musicians—tenor sax, a string bass, and an anomalous accordion—stood in the shadows next to the empty spotlighted stage not far from the end of the bar. Their offering was grotesquely amplified.

  Fred ordered an Old Brown Dog, his usual drink at the Moonglow, leaned back and let his antennae reach for whatever they might pick up. The clientele was middle-aged and male. It rustled knowingly at a change in the music that was lost on Fred. Curtains at the back of the stage opened. A young woman strode out, simultaneously dropping a scarlet cape like a stage wrestler’s. Her figure was so lush as to be almost Victorian, and the major part of it was visible. She wore, in total, a scarlet sequined thong and scarlet sequined pasties over the nipples that rode her heavy breasts. Scarlet high-heeled shoes. She approached a steel pole that stood front and center and addressed it as Samson did the pillars of the temple.

  She was enthusiastic, energetic, and she made up for her lack of grace with bored athleticism. Black head of hair cut so short it was almost butch. Aside from the shoes, the scarlet thong and the pasties, she wore twenty disks of scarlet nail polish on toes and fingers, cascading sparkling earrings, a silver bangle pierced at the navel, and on her right buttock when it happened to turn in Fred’s direction, clenching and working with the effort of her exercise, the rendition, roughly five inches high, of a glass jar in which colorful horned beetles were devouring coins, while copulating. The same emblem, but in smaller scale, had been on Kim, mixed amongst the many others. Here, in isolation, placed as they were to take advantage of the muscle, their movements, both while copulating and while eating money, were exquisitely lifelike while the dancer moved. It was almost like watching them in a nature movie. Arthur was a genius.

  Fred’s waitress appeared with his beer and a bowl of popcorn. Fred told her, “Tippy Artoonian?” And as involuntary assent showed in her eyes, he added, “What stage name does she go by?”

  “You walked past it on the bill,” the waitress said. “Scheherazade.”

  “I saw that,” Fred said. “My mistake. I thought Scheherazade was going to be a belly dancer.”

  “What Tippy figures, week-nights, never mind the preliminaries. Anyway, the band, Bob and the Bobbsey Twins, not what they call themselves, that’s what I call them, retired cops, they can’t do that snake charming music. You imagine all that Neenah Neenah Deedle Deedle on the accordion?”

  Fred said, “I see what you mean.”

  “Normally we use CDs. You’d say that’s cheaper, but Bob and the Bobbsey Twins work for love. Figure they’ll die slower, they have something to do. So Tina figures, whatthehell? You gonna eat?” the waitress asked.

  Fred shook his head. “Popcorn will do me.”

  The variations in Tippy’s dance were exhausted long before her session had expired. She drifted into “repeat” mode. Fred picked up his drink and wandered to the bar, taking the end farthest from the commotion of the performance. The bartender stood there in the comparative calm, a middle-aged balding man, built to fill out his apron. Fred said, “I thought I might see Tina.”

  “Not till later,” the bartender replied.

  “Zagoriski,” Fred said. “Zag,” he remembered. “Sad.”

  This observation raised a nod.

  Fred said, “Friend of the firm.”

  This observation prompted a less enthusiastic nod. Tippy, twenty feet away, was making up for the barman’s stolid demeanor.

  “I don’t believe I know you,” the barman said.

  “Fred,” Fred told him. He shook his head. “Hit and run,” he mused.

  The barman added a footnote. “Sure, call it hit and run when it looks like the son of a bitch driver went over him three times. Once forward knocked him down. Then, what they figure, backed over him to make sure, or take a look, Oops! what was that? Then forward one more time to celebrate, or just to keep going wherever the hell the son of a bitch was going, is the way I see it. SUV or a truck, looks like to me, whatever. He didn’t run till he was damned sure what he’d hit, is how I read it, and how bad he’d hit it.”

  “So,” Fred said. “What the boys like to call vehicular homicide.”

  “You want another one of those?” the barman said.

  Fred shook his head. “Gotta pace myself. May I buy you something?”

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “What that means to me,” Fred said, “is why aren’t there cops crawling all over interested in where he was, what he was doing, the rest of it. If they’re talking homicide.”

  The barman, pouring a generous slug of bourbon over crushed ice, said, “There’s homicide, then there’s vehicular homicide, which is something else. Accident or maybe spur of the moment. What it sounds like, the theory they’re going on, given Zag was fried when he left here, gorgeous redhead, maybe they’re looking for her, good luck! Ask did she see anything? They figure, some cluck hits him, a car, maybe it was a truck, whatever, doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of difference to the guy, backs up to see, takes off, it starts, it was an accident. That’s what it sounds like to me they’re thinking. It starts, it’s an accident. Afterwards, hit and run.”

  “Gorgeous redhead,” Fred said. “You see her?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I go for redheads,” Fred said. “No offense to Tippy.”

  The barman took a consultative sip from his drink. “You sure know your way around for a guy I never saw in my life before. Everyone’s nickname. Tippy? Tina? Zag?”

  Fred took a swig from his Old Brown Dog. The bar had its own supply of popcorn. Fred reached into a bowl and selected a handful, eating the stiff, bloated kernels one by one. The band played golden oldies. It made no difference to Tippy’s random gyrations. Were those tears?

  “I’ll go enjoy the show,” Fred told the barman and went back to his table.

  It was true. The pathetic display was rendered poignant. Tippy was weeping while she danced. The nature and content of her large muscle display made the fact of her tears so disjointedly irrelevant that it was passing unnoticed. The baubles sparkling under her eyes and tumbling to the stage were like the bangles that clattered under her ear lobes, or the one that flickered below her navel.

  Fred went back to the bar. “If house rules permit,” he told the barman, “would you tell Tippy, when she takes her break, I’d like to buy her a drink?”

  “It’s a free country,” he said. “You want me to tell Tina you’re here?”

  “Maybe later.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The tables were spaced
far enough apart to allow dancing—was that the plan?—or private conversation. Or were they spaced out so as to make the business seem better attended than it was? Such places are often fronts for something else. Enough customers were eating. At least the restaurant was functional. But even if the band was free, the Moonlight Lounge was losing money tonight.

  At the small tables conversation proceeded as if nothing was happening in the way of entertainment. The fun was set aside, a tedious alternative to weather. Fred ordered another beer. He didn’t have to drink it, only to do his part to maintain the fiction of revelry.

  Bob and the Bobbsey Twins continued their musical complaint. Tippy kept up her melancholy dance until, after she had filled a half hour, she retrieved her cape and was supplanted by a leggy blonde accoutered in scraps of blue sequins, fabric, and nail polish. “We’ll be back,” one of the Bobseys said. He and his cohorts angled off. The new dancer fiddled with a CD player until it delivered a throaty beat through the band’s warm amplifiers, followed by music that developed the theme, “You can take this pole and…”

  The new dancer began to follow the music’s suggestions. She worked as if she had been awake for all of seven minutes. For this she had been obliged to finish high school? Some time back, from the look of her. In five minutes or so Tippy, in a black sheath dress, came to Fred’s table. “You’re the one?” she asked. “Fred?”

  “I appreciate your stopping by,” Fred said. “Can you sit for a minute?”