brought the target back in; it was a nice grouping, right around the heart, with two holes in the middle of the head. I missed one.
I fired off the rest of the box of shells, trying to focus my intention and concentrate on the one thing, the shot, all the while knowing that I was squeezing off my hatred for McCaffrey and my frustration at having to take this bizarre case. The smell of the popping shells helped a little.
“Whattaya think?” Charlie asked.
“A little light for me. Too much like a toy.”
* * *
I hopped back into Delores and hit the 101 at a trot, driving out of the fog, warming up as I jumped onto 280 and rode it to the end, veering around the sharp bank of the last lonely stretch of freeway with the bay on my right and the City unseen, finally coming up over the steep rise of the exit ramp with the City splayed out ahead of me, the Transamerica winking in the sunlight. The ramp took me over the CalTrain tracks where the trains slow into the depot, down into the depths of the industrial backstreets this side of 80. I went up 6th into SoMa and turned right onto Mission. I was lucky enough to find a parking space right down the street from the gallery, after going around the block only twice. I paralleled and fed the meter.
I stepped into the air-conditioned gallery and saw a cute brunette, early twenties, at the reception desk, talking to a thin-lipped blond man standing at the door to an adjacent office.
“I’ll be back in five minutes, I promise,” she was saying.
“Go ahead, Serena.”
“Thanks, Mr. Dalton.” With that, the girl, all trim thighs in a tight skirt, skipped past me without a glance and out the front door.
“Excuse me,” I said, stopping Dalton’s progress into his office, “are you the man I spoke with on the phone? About Ashley?”
His lips grew even thinner and he inhaled quickly through his nose, stepping around me without looking at me. “You’ll find Ashley’s piece in the gallery.”
I perched at the doorway. “I was wondering if I could chat with you just a moment.” I handed him my card. He flipped it over in his wiry hands to see if there was anything on the back before he bothered to read the front. “Information broker? What are you, some kind of investigator?”
“Not really,” I forced a laugh, “I’m just doing some research for a journalist who’s working on a story about Ashley.” I didn’t want to spook him. “What can you tell me about the artist?”
He waved me in. His office was immaculate. The desk had one of those month-per-page calendars with appointments lettered in exquisite print, and a telephone that looked as if it had never been touched. The walls were covered with prints of a certain taste: Matisse, van Gogh, Monet.
He sat stiffly behind his desk and blinked at me. He did almost a double take, like he either knew me or was sizing me up for a new sports jacket. “What is it you want to know?”
“Anything, really. But more about her personally. We think her work speaks for itself.” I took out a notebook and put a pen behind my ear to look professional. “What is her last name, by the way?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” he said, bored. “She’s a one-name diva.”
“Have you met her?”
“Once or twice,” he replied dismissively. “It was quite enough.”
“How so?”
“She flounced in here demanding more for her work than I could possibly sell it for—portraits, you know. They just don’t go for much these days.”
The word portraits ran down the back of my neck like stray hairs in a shirt collar after a haircut.
He went on, sighing heavily, casting his eyes at the ceiling: “She wanted to negotiate the gallery’s cut, which is nonnegotiable. All lip gloss and no business sense. She’s . . . an artist.” He smiled, the way one smiles at a crazy cat lady.
The ensuing silence threatened to strangle me. He offered nothing else. Apparently, he was done. “Do you know how we could contact her? An interview would be fantastic.”
“Unfortunately, I don’t. She acts as her own agent, and when I tried to contact her regarding her share of the sale, her number was disconnected. I’m at a bit of a loss myself.”
“The sale?”
“The piece she has in the current show. I sold it.”
“To whom?”
He smiled crisply. “That’s confidential, I’m afraid. The painting will be collected when the show comes down at the end of the month.”
“I see. But you said you met her—what can you tell me about her personally?”
He stiffened visibly, his eyes focused over my shoulder. I turned to see a slick-looking young man, not too tall, but brick-like, standing in the doorway. He wore a silver-gray sharkskin suit, many years out of fashion and very much out of place—but since this was the art world, maybe he fit right in. His loafers were tasseled and shined to perfection. He noticed me staring at him and furrowed a pair of stiff, surly looking brows. Dark hair, deep-set eyes, broad nose. I couldn’t place his heritage—not quite Caucasian, but not exactly dark-skinned either. Maybe half-Mexican, or Spanish, or even Italian. His demeanor suddenly relaxed and his lips parted, baring a wide smile generous of teeth but not of intention.
“Oh,” he showed us his palms by way of apology, “I didn’t realize you had a visitor, Mr. Dalton. So sorry to interrupt.” He had a slight accent, a little too much attention on the h’s and r’s. Definitely a Spanish speaker.
“No—no, not at all,” Dalton replied hurriedly. “We’re finished. If you’ll excuse me—”
“Just one last thing, Mr. Dalton. About that number you said was disconnected, could I trouble you—”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Crane, this gentleman has an appointment.” He was done with me. “If you’d like to take a look at the piece, I’ll speak with you again shortly.”
“Certainly.” I stood up and looked down on Sharkskin’s snarling brow. He was shorter than me, but not by much, and stocky, with a dangerous, cat-killer look in his eyes. He didn’t make a motion to get out of my way, and I couldn’t get out the door without knocking him over. “Excuse me,” I said, as sardonically as possible.
“Mmmmm,” he purred, giving me a coquettish look that was disarming from such a brusque man, and moved aside just enough to let me pass. The second I was out the door it shut behind me.
I cut down the passageway to the gallery proper, the air-conditioning hitting me like a wall of frozen air and drowning out the stagnant silence.
A bright painting fairly illuminated one end of the hall. It was me, wearing fading blue denim Levi’s, a gray T-shirt, and a tattered green Mr. Rogers cardigan with six missing buttons and four big holes. That’s my sweater, all right. I was bent over my kitchen table, addressing a large envelope, with two more small untidy piles of mail and paperwork on either side of me. The painting had a cool cerulean feel to it, with sharp
