A Perfect Eye Page 11

  Sleeping with an adversary, then drowning my heartache with the married head of Litigation who had hair plugs?

  “…really belong at the museum?”

  “I love art, Margo, just not the business of it.” I hired you despite the Schiele, not because of it. “And speaking of business—”

  “Look, Mommy!” Olivia flung her arms in the air and flew down the slide.

  “I’ll never get those leggings clean,” Margo despaired. “How’s your new guy?”

  “I honestly don’t know what to make of him.”

  “Meaning?”

  Lily hesitated. Maybe it was just an off-color joke, a clumsy line. “A Degas ballerina turned him on, Margo. He’s unbelievably horny, or—”

  “Jesus, Lily!” Margo laughed. “What rock have you been living under? Thirty-something guys these days don’t know how to act around women.”

  “Maybe that’s it…”

  “You’re a hot older babe, of course he’s trying too hard. Name me one guy who doesn’t overcompensate.”

  Paul. He doesn’t even have to try.

  Olivia ran up with a dandelion. “Make a wish, Lily, and blow!”

  “I wish every Saturday was this one.”

  Olivia held the dandelion, and Lily blew. The fluff flew away, sparkling in the sun. Olivia ran off.

  “That FBI man broke your heart,” Margo said, “but enjoy this one while he lasts.” She gave her a squeeze, and Lily hugged back. “Speaking of the energizer bunny, I found out more about that suit against Kurtz. It’s a patent for a long-life battery.”

  Kurtz’s murder. She should be focusing on his enemies, not going down a rabbit hole with Caillebotte or ruminating over her own problems with men. “Give me the Cliff’s Notes version.”

  “Kurtz promised to use the battery in his drills. He buried the patent instead.”

  Buying a company for its crown jewel was standard practice. Sometimes burying the jewel was the end game. “So?”

  “Most fossil fuels are used in cars,” Margo said. “A long-life battery that really works would be the death knell for an oil-and-gas guy like Kurtz. The inventor sued. Kurtz and Mr. Wonderful were driving him into the ground.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I’ll find out.”

  Another dead end—good thing I didn’t tell Paul.

  “Big plans tonight?” Margo said.

  “Dinner at my dad’s. I’m introducing him to the little engine that could.”

  Olivia was at the swings. “Push me, Mommy!”

  Margo left her bag and went to her daughter. She grabbed the swing and did a huge pullback.

  Not like those Saturday walks when I was a kid.

  Olivia shrieked with delight as she dipped and swung through the air.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Lily snipped chives and basil from the patch by the back porch. Through the bungalow’s windows came laughter and the scents of garlic and Bolognese sauce. She’d made the lasagna with ground veal, the way her dad liked it, and the double batch would give him plenty of leftovers. The Franciscan ware in the sideboard would finally be used. When she was a child, how its hand-glazed apples, moss-colored leaves and molded stems enthralled her! Another burst of laughter, more raucous. Dave must be telling jokes.

  For a know-it-all who shunned alcohol, her dad wasn’t a bad host. He and Dave had picked up a couple of bottles of red on their way back from Black Hawk. Nick had brought two dozen roses, and his debut with her dad seemed to be going well. Back in the kitchen she searched for a knife to mince the shallot. Even her dad’s cleaver was nicked and dull….

  “This one.” Nick selected a paring knife and tested it on his finger.

  “That won’t cut butter.”

  “Does your dad have a sharpener? No, of course not.”

  In the cupboard he found a chipped mug. Turning it upside down, he placed the paring knife’s blade at a thirty-degree angle to the ceramic ring at the bottom. He drew the blade against the grain towards him, then tested its sharpness. “Patience, patience…” he murmured, doing it three more times. “Voilà!”

  “You learn that in Boy Scouts?” Maybe that explained his skill set and randiness.

  “I was an Eagle Scout, and I grew up in a house with coffee cups and no knife sharpener.”

  “You sure know your way around a kitchen. Did your mom—”

  “It was just my old man and me.”

  She gave Nick a hug. Smiling, he peeled and minced the shallot. She took the lasagna from the oven. Cheese and sauce bubbled, and the aroma was heavenly. He carried it to the dining room. “Ta-dah!” he cried.

  “To the Degas ballerina!” Dave raised his tumbler. “And her savior, Lily. A true cause for celebration.”

  “A milestone for Amy, too,” she said. “She’s helping me revarnish it.”

  “Sweet,” Nick said.

  “Amy or the ballerina?” Dave winked slyly. He was gauging her dad’s reaction to her new beau, and she braced for an evening of innuendos.

  “How was Black Hawk?” she asked.

  “I thought I was a gambler,” Dave said, “but Harry taught me a thing or two.”

  Her dad’s eyes gleamed. How much had he taken Dave for? She served the lasagna to oohs and ahs.

  “You have a system, Mr. Sparks?” Nick asked.

  Tell him to call you Harry.

  “It’s called using your eyes,” he replied. “A postman does more than deliver mail.”

  Nick recovered nicely. “Isn’t gambling an art?”

  “Better than a damn science.”

  Uh-oh.

  Dave jumped in. “Scientists aren’t all bad, Harry. We chemists deal with physical matter, much the way a mailman—”

  “We don’t deal with particles. We deal with the public.”

  This would be so much easier if he drank! A mailman, a chemist, and an engineer walk into a bar… Lily giggled, breaking the tension, and passed the bread again. Black Hawk had given her dad an appetite, or was it the guests at his table? Dave threw the next punch.

  “Engineers take things apart and fix what isn’t broken. Whereas chemists—”

  “—ask why but can’t do anything about it,” Nick said. Color had risen in his cheeks, and there was no trace of that golly-gee-whiz Eagle Scout now. Unlike the other night in the lab, it was kind of a turn-on. She squeezed his leg.

  Dave opened the second bottle of wine. “A chemist creates pigments.”

  “Who cares what paint’s made of?” Nick said. “I know how to use it.”

  “Touché!” she cried.

  The conversation turned to sports and politics, hot buttons at any other table. She cleared the dishes and made coffee.

  “You’re a student of art?” Dave was asking Nick.

  “I liked the Samurai exhibit.”

  “Weapons don’t belong in an art museum,” Dave said.

  “That exhibition creeped me out,” she said, hoping to deflect another argument by passing around the biscotti and sorbet. “Not just the swords. Those four Samurai behind the velvet rope—”

  “But aren’t the masks great?” Nick said. “Even a chemist—”

  “Science is overrated,” her dad decreed, “and collecting is a pile of junk.”

  ―

  “Your dad’s something else,” Nick said as he was leaving.

  She laughed. “He’s harmless.”

  “I wish he was my old man.”

  “Really?”

  “At least he’s sober. How old were you when your mom died?”

  “Five,” she said.

  “I know how that is. Never got over her, did he?”

  “Pretty sharp for an Eagle Scout...”

  “You forgot to dust the salad plates.”

  “I’m lucky to have them.” Thank God her dad missed the gold compact when he threw out the rest of her mom’s stuff. But Nick understood. She gave him an enthusiastic kiss.

  “Tomorrow night?” he said.

&nbs
p; ―

  “I’m worried about Harry,” Dave said as he got into his pickup truck.

  She stiffened. “Something happen in Black Hawk?”

  “No, but with his leg he shouldn’t be climbing a ladder.”

  She’d seen it against the garage, with the can of paint. “Dad’s pretty nimble.”

  “It’s more than that,” he said. “When’s the last time a plumber or electrician was here?”

  “The toilets flush and the lights work….”

  “I’m no engineer, but appliances and connections wear out. And with that McMansion next door, anything can happen.” They gazed at the faux Mediterranean monstrosity with turrets on the corner lot.

  “At least he’ll have a neighbor.” But not one like Walt.

  Dave shook his head. “People no longer take pride in their work, Lily. You don’t know how those sewer lines were installed.”

  “They were inspected.”

  “By experts?”

  She patted his hand. “You’ve done wonders for him, Dave. He’s lucky to have you as a friend.”

  He cranked the ignition and shifted into reverse. “At least check that stove!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Vintage Antiques had survived gentrification and the wrecking ball. The used bookstores and sex emporia that were its neighbors on South Broadway were gone, but luckily not everyone preferred Ikea to nostalgia and junk. At Vintage, the cognoscenti could find whatever they were looking for.

  The bell jingled as he entered the shop. Sweat, old shoes and manure hung in the air like dust. He breathed deeply, savoring this beloved haunt. Pile of junk, was it? What was a junk shop but a museum of unwanted objects in search of a connoisseur?

  “Hello, Maude,” he greeted the woman at the counter, “you look lovely today.” Pin curls framed her face like grey pie crust. What would Rembrandt do with that face?

  “Where’ve you been?” She offered him an underdone cookie from a paper plate. Crisco and coconut. He was a good customer.

  “In the field. You know my work.”

  It was important; that’s all she knew. She nodded, and he imagined her face fracturing into shards like a Picasso. “Anything exciting come in while I was gone?”

  “That depends.” She leaned forward and a riper odor wafted across the counter. The fan whirred, suffusing the air with her scent. He stepped back. “What’re you looking for this time, more old books?”

  Inspiration. “A good hoe, with a long handle and a strong blade.”

  “You’re the tool expert.”

  His smile slipped. “Just an old hoe. The weeds have taken over.”

  She offered him another cookie. The coconut was greasy, and oil from the shortening dotted the dough’s surface. Her face began to melt, elongating her chin until it stretched over the counter like a Dali clock. He declined the cookie with a regretful shake of his head. She leaned over the counter and winked. “You don’t fool me.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “You’re a collector.”

  He threw up his hands. “Busted!”

  They shared a laugh.

  “You know where the tools are. Holler if you need me.”

  He set off through the galleries of junk. At some point they’d been curated, but order and criteria had now succumbed to entropy. A shelf of herbs and spices, expiration dates decades old, hung over a bin overflowing with overalls and musty coats. In the next room a broken wheelbarrow leaned against a dinette with metal chairs. The table was set with an oilcloth and a dingy pitcher of plastic roses. Imagine yourself in this kitchen. Hear the teakettle, smell the fresh-baked…

  Just like that, he was back home. A sink with filthy dishes, a refrigerator that stank and didn’t keep his old man’s six-packs cold. The cast iron pan on the gravy-stained stove was the only reminder of his mother. But he hadn’t come to excavate memories.

  Like a gopher’s burrow, one airless room opened onto the next, each one’s wares shoddier and more forlorn than the last. Display cases with costume jewelry and cheap watches, broken furniture giving way to unpaired shoes and rusted tools, an endless array of discards. But he was in no hurry.

  He and his old man had trawled the junk shops near the farm town where he grew up. His old man collected tools and porn; you could find anything if you knew who to ask. Now, with the click of a mouse, he could summon things beyond the old man’s wildest dreams. He’d been even more particular about his tools. They had to be wood or iron, honed razor sharp.

  He passed a carton of knee-high rubber boots. His nostrils twitched. Blood? No—an older memory. His old man worked the beet fields. He came home reeking of beer and the pulp’s sickly stench, his hat and overalls and boots stained, his machete at his side. Think you’re too good for this, boy? I say what’s good for you. He’d escaped by graduating from school, getting a degree, and making far more of himself than his old man dreamed.

  I got even with you for Junie. And I got even with Kurtz.

  He thought of the night he finally met Kurtz. It was at the Fort Worth symposium for Energy Leaders of the West. At the reception at the Kimbell, Kurtz had held court, bragging about his expertise as a connoisseur and the paintings he owned. Touring the museum with Sully and drink in hand, he’d been just as Jay described: imperious as the Manchu Emperor, glittery eyes raping one masterpiece after another. He paused at On the Pont de l’Europe.

  “What’s this?” he asked Sully.

  “A Caillebotte,” Sully said.

  Three men stood on a steel bridge. Two leaned against the railing with their backs to the viewer, one in a frock coat and top hat, the other in a derby and a canvas jacket, apparently watching the trains in the station below. The third man passed behind them before exiting the frame. What was striking was the anonymity—the furtiveness—of the man in the top hat. He stood too close to the fellow in the derby, and his hand was limp. Was he signaling?

  Kurtz quickened beside him.

  “Why haven’t I seen him before?” Kurtz demanded.

  “Most of Caillebotte’s works are privately owned,” Sully said.

  “Get me one.”

  When the crowd thinned, he returned alone to Pont.

  “Marvelous, isn’t it?” the curator said. “The steel, those massive girders… Caillebotte painted another version. It, too, is called Pont de l’Europe. Come, I’ll show you a print.”

  In the print, the top-hatted gent strolled the bridge with a lady carrying a parasol. But he was eying a youth in a canvas jacket who leaned on the railing—the same fellow in the Kimbell’s version. No question which Pont came first, because Caillebotte’s intent was clear: In Pont One, the gent ignored the lady because he was cruising the boy. He stood not on the bridge, but at the precipice of a decision. Would he choose her—or the boy? In Pont Two, he’d moved in. Caillebotte’s two-act play perfectly captured the drama of coming alive. But no great act went unpunished. There was always a price to pay….

  Sully returned and gave him and the curator his card. “If a Caillebotte comes on the market, call me.”

  He stayed in touch with Sully, who finally got him an audience with Kurtz. Kurtz was arrogant and crass. His Impressionists were stunning, but he was always looking for the next one. When he showed Kurtz one of his own paintings, Kurtz was dismissive—insulting. But he knew how to be patient, and his plan began to form. He knew just what glittering object would draw Jay’s father to his fate….

  Vintage’s final room was an enormous trash heap. Stained sinks and tubs, broken chairs, bikes without wheels, the innards of two-burner stoves stacked ceiling high. Helpless to say no, the junk shop’s curator had evidently given up. But these unwanted objects aroused him. Take me, they cried, you know what I’m for! He didn’t need a leghold trap—not anymore, thank you very much!—but there were other prizes.

  “Heavens!” Maude said when he returned. “What’s that?”

  “A beet topper.” The hickory-handled machete had a foot-long steel blade wi
th a pick at the end. “Haven’t seen one in years.”

  “And what’s this, a child’s easel?”

  A chalkboard one from the ‘40s, with a battered tin box of paints. The period was wrong, of course, but it reminded him of Brendan, his junior high classmate. And Junie, too. What a difference a little encouragement—recognition—would have made! Perfect eye or not, Lily was blind to that too. But he was about to open her eyes. He’d take what she cared about most and neutralize her with one elegant stroke. Too late to turn back? For her, but not for him. He, too, stood on the precipice Caillebotte captured so well.

  “What on earth will you do with it?” Maude asked.

  Pont One, or Two?

  “The beet topper, or the easel?” he said.

  “Either!”

  He winked. “Like you said, I’m a collector.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The moment Lily entered her lab Monday morning, she knew something was dreadfully wrong. Amy leaned over the heat vacuum table, hands fluttering helplessly. The Objects Conservator and her assistant huddled behind her, as if afraid whatever was on the tarp might be infectious. Gina clutched her chest to stop herself from physically exploding.

  Lily set down her backpack and slowly approached. Amy mutely turned to her, eyes wide as a lamb’s. The Objects Conservator stepped back to make room. She looked down at the table. There lay the ballerina, but not the one she’d left on Friday.

  The dancer’s velvet surface had grown a glassy skin. The gold was gone from her tutu, now a garish rose instead of shell pink. Her satin toe shoes were rayon, the dance floor as glossy as a basketball court. And her hair—it was brass.

  Worst of all, the composition no longer made sense. Instead of lit from the side, it seemed to be illuminated by a floodlight. The floor predominated, the ballerina was flattened, the illusion of depth was destroyed. As her eye struggled to find a way in, Lily’s stomach heaved.

  My poor ballerina! Did I bring you back to life to suffer this?

  “What happened?” she said.

  “I—” Amy began.

  Lily had spent almost every waking hour of the past six weeks with the Degas. With each stroke of her swab she’d asked what the artist had intended. Each new revelation had brought greater admiration for Degas and affection for his girl in satin slippers.