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“I think he’s a critic,” she said a minute later.

  “No way, princess. That guy’s suit, it’s a ’Drini, a megabuck. Art critics buy their suits at Penney’s. And did you see the diamond stickpin on his lapel? He’s money walking.”

  “Shhh! He’s coming back.”

  “Good. Watch Stewie take him to the cleaner’s.”

  Stewie’s commercial intuition always hit home, which was why Veronica tolerated his ridiculous wardrobe and haircut. He’d sold twelve of her paintings tonight, one of them-called Child with Mother, an inversion of the traditional theme — for $10,000. She felt intimidated now, though. She felt second rate, even though she knew she wasn’t. “Don’t ask for more than a thousand,” she said.

  Stewie laughed.

  God, he’s good-looking, she thought as he approached. The little tingle worried her. Stewie was right. She was hot.

  “A most impressive show,” Khoronos said in his strange accent.

  “Thank you. Would you care for some champagne?”

  “Oh, no. Alcohol offends the perceptions. The muse is a temple, Ms. Polk. It must never be reviled. Remember that.”

  Veronica was close to fidgeting where she stood.

  “Hello, sir,” Stewie introduced. “I’m Stewart Arlinger, Ms. Polk’s sales representative.”

  “Khoronos,” Khoronos said, and declined shaking hands. He viewed Stewie smugly as a hotel owner viewing a bellhop.

  “Are you an art critic?” Veronica asked.

  Khoronos laughed. “Heaven forbid. I’m nothing like that, nothing like that at all. Nor am I an artist myself.”

  “What are you, then?”

  “I’ve already told you.” The faint, measured smile returned. “I’m a voyeur. And art is what I feast my vision upon.” Abruptly he turned to Stewie. “I would like to buy Vertiginous Red.”

  “I’d be happy to sell it to you, Mr. Khoronos,” Stewie answered. “Vertiginous Red makes quite a profound and important creative statement, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’m aware of the work’s artistic significance.”

  “But I’m afraid the asking price is considerable.”

  Khoronos frowned. “I didn’t ask you how much it was, I told you I wanted to buy it, Mr. Arlinger.”

  Stewie didn’t waver. “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  Veronica almost fainted. Goddamn you, Stewie! That piece of shit isn’t worth twenty-five CENTS!

  Khoronos’ face remained unchanging. “My people will be here at eight a.m. sharp. Please see to the painting’s proper exchange.”

  “That’s no problem at all, sir.”

  Khoronos was suddenly peeling bills off a roll of cash, which he then stuffed into an envelope and handed to Stewie. He turned to Veronica, smiled that cryptic smile of his, and said, “Good night, Ms. Polk.”

  Then he walked out of the gallery.

  “Christ on a surfboard!” Stewie frantically counted the money in the envelope. Veronica was too dizzy to think.

  “I don’t believe this,” Stewie muttered. He handed Veronica the envelope. It contained $25,000 in hundred-dollar bills.

  * * *

  Thoughts of Khoronos swam in her head all night; she’d scarcely slept. Late next morning, the phone roused her.

  “Hi, Veronica. Long time, no hear.”

  It was her friend Ginny. “How are things in the novel gig?”

  “Not bad. You’ll love this, though. My publisher actually had the balls to tell me to make my books shorter because the price of raw paper went up. That’s like telling you to use less paint.”

  “The things we do for art. What’re you going to do?”

  “Write shorter books. Fuck art. You should see my mortgage.”

  Ginny wrote grim, deceitful novels which critics condemned as “pornographic vignettes of bleakness which trumpet the utter destruction of the institution of marriage in particular and morality in general.” Ginny swore these reviews increased her sales, while the fringe critics hailed her as a genius of the neo-feminist movement. Her themes were all the same: men were good for nothing but sex and could never be trusted. Her last one, Love Labyrinthine, had sold a million copies.

  “I met the most wonderful man the other day,” Ginny said.

  “I thought you hated men.”

  “Except for bed warmers, I do. But this one was different.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  “Would you listen! I was doing a book signing at Glen Burnie Mall last week. At signings, most people fawn over you. But this guy spent the whole time talking about the function of prose mechanics, syntactical projection of imagery, creative dynamics, stuff like that. And it was really funny because there wasn’t a shred of falseness in him. When was the last time you met a man without a shred of false—”

  “Never,” Veronica said.

  “He was so enthused, you know? About literature, about art. When was the last time you met a man who was enthused about—”

  “Never,” Veronica repeated. “There aren’t any.” But then her brow rumpled. This man sounded a bit like—

  “What did he look like?” she asked.

  “Oh, God, Vern. A panty-melter. Tall, slim, great clothes, and a face like Costner or somebody. He was older, though, and really refined, and he’s got the most beautiful long gray and blond hair. An accent too, German maybe, or Slavic.”

  Veronica smirked hard. It sounded just like Khoronos.

  “His name is Khoronos,” Ginny dreamily added.

  The pause which followed seemed endless.

  “Vern? You still there?”

  “Uh—” This was too much of a coincidence. “I met him last night during my show at the Sarnath. He paid twenty-five grand for one of my canvases, and you’re right, he is sexy.”

  “This is outrageous!” Ginny wailed. “Then he must’ve invited you to the retreat too, right?”

  “What retreat?”

  Ginny impassed. “It’s a get-together he has every year at his estate, an art-group kind of thing. He called it his ‘indulgence,’ his chance to be an artistic ‘voyeur.’”

  Veronica’s frown deepened.

  “He said he likes to be in proximity to artists, to talk, party, get to know each other. Something like that.”

  Veronica simmered. Her face felt hot.

  “So I told him I’d go. There’ll be other people there too. Two guys, a poet and sculptor I’ve never heard of. Oh, yeah, and Amy Vandersteen’s going to be there too.”

  “You’re kidding!” Veronica almost yelled. Amy Vandersteen was one of the biggest feminist directors in Hollywood. All at once, Veronica felt jilted. Why hadn’t she been invited?

  “Well, I hope you have a good time,” she said.

  Ginny could tell by the tone of her voice. “You’re mad, aren’t you? You’re mad I got invited and you didn’t.”

  “I’m not mad,” Veronica scoffed. She was mad, all right. It made no sense, she realized, but she was madder than hell.

  “I didn’t mean to gloat, Vern. I won’t go if you’re mad.”

  “That’s silly. Go. Have fun. Tell Khoronos I said hi.”

  “I will, Vern. ’Bye.”

  Veronica slammed the phone down. But why should she be so riled? It was stupid. Or—

  It wasn’t just the idea of missing out. It was Khoronos. She wanted his attention, his presence, his shared interest. It was a cryptogram that implied she was less worthy than the other people. Not good enough. Fuck! she thought.

  Depression assailed her.

  She went through the day’s mail, to get her mind away. Bills and junk mostly. A renewal for ARTnews. But the last letter looked like a wedding invitation, gold letters on fine paper. There was no return address. She opened it and read:

  Dear Ms. Polk:

  It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance. In the few moments we spoke, I came away feeling edified; we share many commonalties. I’d like to invite you to my estate for what I think of as an esoteric retreat. Se
veral other area artists will attend. It’s something I’ve been doing for a long time — call it an indulgence. It’s a creative get-together where we can look into ourselves and our work. If you’d care to join us, please contact my service number below for directions.

  Sincerely,

  Erim Khoronos

  Veronica squealed in joy.

  * * *

  When she looked up at the lilacs again, Jack was gone. Ice melted in his empty glass, and he’d left the keys to her apartment on the bartop. How long had she been recounting the events which had led to her invitation? Her eyes were wet; she knew how Jack would take this, but what could she do? She had to be honest.

  Craig, the barkeep, brought her another drink. His long look told her he knew exactly what had happened.

  “Jack’s a great guy,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “So you two are finished?”

  Experience, she thought, or was she really thinking of Khoronos? “I haven’t experienced enough in life,” was the only answer she could summon.

  “What kind of experience? There are all types,” Craig said.

  “That’s just it. I don’t really know.”

  Craig poured earthquake shooters for some rowdies at the bar, then drifted back, twirling a shaker glass. Craig and Jack were good friends. This was hard.

  “You think I’m a bitch,” she suggested. “You think I’m stupid and selfish for dumping Jack.”

  “No, Veronica, if you don’t love him anymore, then you have to move on, and let him move on. It’s the only honest way.”

  Do I still love him? she asked herself. The question was turmoil. She didn’t know. She didn’t even know if she wanted to know. “Maybe I just need some time away. Maybe things could work out for us later.”

  “Do you think you really want them to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Veronica tried to think of Jack, but all she could see behind her eyes was Khoronos.

  Chapter 2

  The phone sounded like a woman screaming.

  I’m dead, he thought.

  That’s how he felt when he woke. The room’s darkness smothered him. He felt entombed. Buried in black.

  Veronica, he thought.

  The phone screamed on.

  “Cordesman. What is it?”

  The voice on the other end wavered, as if in reluctance or dread. “Jack, it’s me. We’ve got a bad one.”

  Me was Randy Eliot, Jack’s partner. A “bad one” meant only one thing in shop talk.

  “Where?” Jack asked.

  “Bayview Landing…I mean, it’s really bad, Jack.”

  “I heard you. How bad?”

  “It looks like something ritual. I don’t know what to do.”

  I’m still half drunk, Jack realized. “Call evidence, call the M. E. Seal the unit and don’t let any newspaper people near the place.”

  Randy sounded drained. It must be bad, because ordinarily the guy didn’t flinch at the tough stuff. The last time they pulled up a floater, Randy was munching chicken gizzards from the Market. He chucked when the floater burst and spilled fresh maggots onto the pier.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “Just sit tight,” Jack said. “I’m on my way.”

  He hauled on old clothes, grabbed his Smith, and popped six aspirin. He refused to look in the mirror; he knew what he would see. Bloodshot eyes. Pale, thin face and paler body. He’d stopped working out years ago. His hair hung in strings to his shoulders. He drank too much and smoked too much and cared too little. He hadn’t always been like that. Was it the job? Or did he simply think too little of himself to cope?

  Veronica, he thought.

  Jack Cordesman was thirty-three years old. He’d been a county cop since twenty-two, and a homicide detective since twenty-eight. He’d been shot once, decorated four times, and had the highest conviction rate of any homicide investigator in the state. There was a time when he was considered the best cop on the department.

  They paid him $46,000 per year to wade in the despair of the world. To protect the good guys and lock the criminals up. By now, though, after so many years, he didn’t even know which was which. Crime rates soared while correctional budgets were slashed. These days they were paroling guys for parole violation. One night, Jack delivered a baby in a parking lot. An hour later he gunned down a man who’d raped a thirteen-year-old girl at gunpoint. The baby died three days later in an incubator. The rapist had lived, gotten five years, and was out now on parole. Good behavior.

  The truth of what he was condemned him to himself; Jack Cordesman was part of the system, and the system didn’t work.

  A bad one, he recalled Randy’s words. He drove his county unmarked through the city’s stillness. They got about half of the city’s homicides because the city cops were too bogged down by rapos and crack gangs. He’d seen bad ones before; most were drug-related. Snitches chopped up like cold cuts, dealers machine-gunned for moving on the wrong turf. These crack people didn’t fool around. Once they’d firebombed an entire apartment project just to make a point.

  Then there was always the ghost of the Longford case. Jack had watched the tapes he bagged as evidence. He thought he’d seen it all until the day he stared at that screen and watched grown men ejaculate into children’s faces. One of the scumbags had been chuckling as he rubbed a scoop of Vaseline between a little blond girl’s legs. And Longford himself, a millionaire, an esteemed member of the community, sodomizing a five-year-old boy…

  Jack fired up a Camel and pushed it all out of his head. What was the use? If you didn’t shrug, you went nuts. If you let yourself care, you were finished. Those were the rules.

  Then the thought crept back: Veronica.

  It wouldn’t leave him alone. Loss? Rejection? He didn’t know what it was. He tried to be mad about it, because that seemed the macho way to be. Sad was pitiful. There’d been tears in his eyes on the way home that night. Yeah, real macho, he thought. Just a big crying pussy.

  She was the only girl he’d ever loved.

  They’d been friends for nearly a year first. It was almost formality; they’d meet at the Undercroft several times a week, they’d drink, shoot the shit, joke around, talk about their problems, like that. Jack had needed to talk — this was right after the Longford case — and Veronica was always there to listen. He doubted he’d ever have gotten over it without her. But he liked listening to her too. He liked hearing about the joys in her life, the sorrows, the quagmires and triumphs, the ups and downs. Her art isolated her; she’d never been in love, she’d said. She even talked about her scant sex life, which made him secretly jealous. “Nobody understands me,” she’d said so many times, her face wan in confusion. I understand you, he’d thought as many times. The fact was this: they were both misfits. That was their bond. Jack the reclusive long-haired homicide cop, and Veronica the desolate artist. Their friendship was perfect in its mutuality, but after so many months, Jack realized it was more than friendship. He realized he loved her.

  That’s when the weeks had begun to pass in slow masochism. His love continued to grow, but so did his certainty that he could never tell her that. If he told her, he might lose it all. “Stewie’s always saying that you and I should be lovers,” she often joked. Jack didn’t laugh. First off, he couldn’t stand Stewie (“a silly, stuck-up, fairy-clothes-wearing asshole,” he’d once called him) and second, he agreed. Now she was talking about her disgruntled romantic life. “Guys think I’m weird,” she’d complained. “They never call me back.” What could he say? “There must be something wrong with me,” she’d say. “Maybe I’m not attractive. Am I attractive?” Jack assured her she was attractive. But how could he tell her the truth, that she didn’t fit into the regular world for the same reasons he didn’t? Each night she’d recount her latest broken quest for love, and each night Jack wilted a little more behind his Fiddich and rocks.

  And just as he thought his turmoil would tear him apart, the
moment exploded. He remembered it very vividly. She’d been sitting there at the bar, right next to him as usual, and out of the blue she’d said, “You know something? All this time I’ve been looking for something, and it’s been sitting right next to me all along.” “What?” Jack said. “I love you,” she said.

  Jack had nearly fallen off his barstool.

  It had been a wonderful beginning.

  * * *

  Now it’s the end, he thought. His despair hollowed him out as he drove the unmarked down Duke of Gloucester Street. He’d dated more than his share of women in his life; none of them had been anything. Only her. Only Veronica. Her weird uniqueness, her spontaneous passion, her love. All gone now. Had it been all his fault? Had he pressured her? Had he moved too fast? Craig had often suggested that he wasn’t giving her enough room to live her life. “She’s an artist. Artists are weird.” Bartenders knew people better than anyone. Jack wished he’d listened a little harder now.

  And now this retreat thing. What the hell was that? Some candy-ass hippy rap session. Let’s drink wine and pooh-pooh about art. A retreat, for God’s sake. She hadn’t even said where it was. And now this guy, this… What had she said his name was?

  Khoronos.

  More barkeep philosophy. Long ago, Craig had told him, “No matter how much you love a girl, and no matter how much she loves you, there’ll always be some other guy.”

  Khoronos, Jack thought.

  The throbbing lights afar caught his eye. Red and blue. Don’t think about it anymore, he pleaded with himself. Just…don’t…think about it.

  The high-rises stood like an arrangement of gravestones. In the center lot a pair of county cruisers sat nose-to-nose. One cop stood smoking, staring off. Another was down on one knee with forehead in hand. The red light on an EMT truck throbbed like a heartbeat.

  “Put the fucking butt out and put it in your pocket,” Jack said. “This is a crime scene. And tuck in your shirt.”

  “Yes, sir,” the cop said. His eyes looked flat.

  “Evidence here yet?”

  “Upstairs and out back. We’re still waiting on the M.E.”