Babayaga

After he calmed down, he proceeded to carefully observe the two through the rest of the afternoon, growing increasingly impressed with the tender harmony of their existence. Having finished their labors with the fleas, Dottie went and opened a bottle of wine. Meanwhile, Sir Billy donned a smock, set up an easel, and waited for Dottie to come sit before him. As Billy painted his wife’s portrait, Vidot looked around the tiny, cramped apartment and discovered that the room was filled with what were perhaps hundreds of paintings of Dottie, canvases documenting her in every mood and era. There were other subjects tucked in among the portraits, rooftop views, country landscapes, and small still lifes, but the vast majority were of the progressively aging lady who sat before him now. The styles had changed, from realist to collage to Cubist to the melancholy style that was Billy’s manner now, one that Vidot was not versed enough in to identify by name, but which he would perhaps call exceptional realism. It was as though as they began to approach the end of their life together Billy was trying to capture every small pore, every subtle detail of the woman he so clearly cherished. Or perhaps it could be that after a lifetime of staring at tiny fleas through his giant glasses, Billy lived wholly in an exaggeratedly magnified world.

Clearly, Vidot realized, the flea circus had only been a sideline for the couple, a way to cover costs until their paintings found a market. With the support of a canny dealer, a popular gallery, or a passionate private collector, they would have long ago left this downtrodden existence behind them. Perhaps they had dreamt of moving into a much larger flat or a mansion like Rodin’s, or of sailing off as Gauguin did to some distant exotic land where they could devote themselves completely to their art. But judging from the canvases stacked ten deep in every corner of every shelf, Billy’s paintings never sold. And so the circus lived on.

After about an hour, with much of the canvas still in a rough state, Dottie went to sit beside her husband. Billy kissed her forehead. She gave his hand a warm squeeze and looked over his progress, pointing out the parts she liked, and planting more affectionate kisses onto his cheek. Her husband blushed with pride. Their perfect affection almost broke Vidot’s heart as he remembered all the agonies of his own cursed marriage, painfully recalling the succumbing sounds of ecstasy his Adèle had made as Alberto held her down and crushed her in his strong arms. Vidot tried to blot out those terrible thoughts and focused instead on the simple harmony here, the smiling, loving, eternal couple, together so long, imbued with such gentle, artful, and considerate spirit, who now rose, hand in hand, from their quiet idyllic contentment to turn their attentions to the orderly arrangement of vials containing fleas that sat on their shelf.

And here the real horror began.

XIV

Will followed Oliver into the jazz club. It was early in the evening but the chairs were still turned over up on the tables while the service staff sat in the far corners, smoking and idly chatting, apparently in no hurry to get the place ready for the night. The room smelled of cleansers and stale smoke. Oliver led Will to a red-leather back booth where they found three black men in matching blue suits sitting with their drinks, playing knock rummy. Oliver slid into the booth next to them, and Will looked around for a chair.

“Hullo, boys. Cigarette? Sorry, all I’ve got are Gitanes.” Oliver held out the pack and they all politely refused. Oliver took one and lit it. “Flats. Kelly. Red. This is Will. He’s an adman, but he’s a good egg too.”

The man called Flats raised an eyebrow. “Adman? Meaning you make advertisements of some sort?”

“Yes, sort of. I help make them.”

“So, you draw the pictures?”

“No, I oversee all the other stuff, the research, the client relations, strategic thinking, you name it.”

“That’s interesting,” said Flats, mulling this over, “because I can’t honestly say I’ve ever noticed anything resembling ‘thinking’ in any advertisement I’ve come across.”

Will couldn’t tell if he was being joshed or not, but before he could reply, Oliver had changed the subject. “Listen, we’re here with a bit of hard news. It seems Boris—you know Boris, yes? Ned’s friend? The oversized Russian with a face like a bad dog’s?” The men nodded. “Yes, well, he dropped dead in the middle of a card game today. Quite sudden. Suspect it was foul play of some sort, we’re looking into it now. Anyway, the gist of it is, we’re wondering have you all heard of any other funny stuff going on around town these days?”