Duma Key

That evening I took both the contract and the tape recorder back down to El Palacio. Wireman was making supper. Elizabeth was sitting in the China Parlor. The gimlet-eyed heron - which was a kind of unofficial housepet - stood on the walk outside, peering in with grim disapproval. The late-day sun filled the room with light. Yet it was not light. China Town was in disarray, the people and animals tumbled here and there, the buildings scattered to the four corners of the bamboo table. The pillared plantation-house was actually overturned. In her chair beside it, wearing her Captain Bligh expression, Elizabeth seemed to dare me to put things right.

Wireman spoke from behind me, making me jump. "If I try to set things back up in any kind of pattern, she sweeps it apart again. She's knocked a bunch to the floor and broken them."

"Are they valuable?"

"Some, but that's really not the point. When she's herself, she knows every one of them. Knows and loves. If she comes around and asks where Bo Peep is... or the Coaling Man... and I have to tell her she broke them, she'll be sad all day."

"If she comes around."

"Yes. Well."

"Think I'll head on home, Wireman."

"Gonna paint?"

"That's the plan." I turned to the disarray on the table. "Wireman?"

"Right here, vato."

"Why does she mess them up when she's like this?"

"I think... because she can't stand looking at what she's not."

I started to turn around. He put a hand on my shoulder.

"I'd just as soon you didn't look at me just now," he said. His voice was barely under control. "I'm not myself just now. Go out the front door and then cut back through the courtyard, if you want to take the beach. Would you do that?"

I did that. And when I got back, I worked on his portrait. It was all right. By which I suppose I mean it was good. I could see his face in there, wanting to come out. Starting to rise. There was nothing special, but that was fine. It was always best when it was nothing special. I was happy, I remember that. I was at peace. The shells murmured. My right arm itched, but very low and deep. The window giving on the Gulf was a rectangle of blackness. Once I went downstairs and ate a sandwich. I turned on the radio and found The Bone: J. Geils doing "Hold Your Lovin." J. Geils was nothing special, only great - a gift from the gods of rock and roll. I painted and Wireman's face rose a little more. It was a ghost now. It was a ghost haunting the canvas. But it was a harmless ghost. If I turned around, Wireman wouldn't be standing at the head of the stairs where Tom Riley had been standing, and down the beach at El Palacio de Asesinos, the left side of Wireman's world was still dark; it was just a thing I knew. I painted. The radio played. Below the music, the shells whispered.

At some point I quit, showered, and went to bed. There were no dreams.

When I think back to my time on Duma Key, those days in February and March when I was working on Wireman's portrait seem like the best days.

xvi

Wireman called the next day at ten. I was already at my easel. "Am I interrupting?"

"It's okay," I said. "I can use a break." This was a lie.

"We missed you this morning." A pause. "Well, you know. I missed you. She..."

"Yeah," I said.

"The contract's a bunny-hug. Very little to fuck with. It says you and the gallery split right down the middle, but I'm gonna cap that. Fifty-fifty shall not live after gross sales reach a quarter-mil. Once you pass that point, the split goes to sixty-forty, your favor."

"Wireman, I'll never sell a quarter of a million dollars' worth of paintings!"

"I'm hoping they'll feel exactly the same way, muchacho, which is why I'm also going to propose that the split goes to seventy-thirty at half a million."

"Plus a handjob from Miss Florida," I said feebly. "Get that in there."

"Noted. The other thing is this one-hundred-and-eighty-day termination clause. It ought to be ninety. I don't foresee a problem there, but I think it's interesting. They're afraid some big New York gallery is going to swoop down and carry you off."

"Anything else about the contract I should know?"

"Nope, and I sense you want to get back to work. I'll get in touch with Mr. Yoshida about these changes."

"Any change in your vision?"

"No, amigo. Wish I could say there was. But you keep painting."

I was taking the phone away from my ear when he said, "Did you happen to see the news this morning?"

"No, never turned it on. Why?"

"County coroner says Candy Brown died of congestive heart failure. Just thought you'd like to know."

xvii