Absolute Instinct (3 page)

Earlier he had visually scouted the walls and shelves, any surface for photographs but found no family pictures. After taking Louisa's spine, he'd searched drawers and boxes and beneath her mattress for any personal letters or envelopes lying about. Aside from bills, nothing. Apparently she had no ties, just as his intuition had led him to believe. No one to miss her passing.

Giles had watched her go in and out of the building. Louisa only came out to cash checks, visit the corner grocery for birdseed, food and liquor. Her only recreation or joy at all appeared to be in feeding the birds across the street at that run-down children's park he stared at now through her apartment window. His artist's eye—studying the patterns of snow-laden November leaves—saw the mosaic of color, texture and line created about the dry earth, rendering ocher and orange amid patches still green with life alongside the blight of dirty snowdrifts piled high, each a counterpoint to the other like the tug of war between seasons.

Giles had begun to frequent the park, and had begun to follow her to the grocery, carrying his art supplies on his back. At the grocery, he'd watched her pay with food stamps and guessed that she lived on disability checks. A miserable life, yet one she prized more highly than he'd imagined. For two weeks now, he'd watched and waited, approaching with great care and a foolproof plan to play on her vanity—what little she still possessed.

Giles recalled how surreptitiously—how like old Archer still hidden somewhere nearby—he had encroached on Louisa's tree-lined territory there in the park to gain her attention. His sketchbook in hand, he set up at her favorite bench, where he busily replicated her birds. Giles suspected that her birds must be the only thing in life more prized than her drink. Certainly, she interacted far more with her birds than with anyone in the neighborhood.

“
You're drawing the birds,” she had said to him only this morning.

“
I find them fascinating.”

“
Really? Someone of your generation?”

“
My generation? I've read Conrad Deueval's books on bird behavior, how very much they are like—”

“—
like us,” she finished for him. “Deueval is marvelous. God what insight he has into people as well as birds.”

Giles had read in the man's introduction that he had never known how to interact with his parents, was alienated all his school life, failed miserably at every endeavor, and could not stand working or living in the same environment with people. Giles easily empathized. But his interest here was in catching and dissecting Louisa Anne Childe for her spinal column with its sweet meats and juices. Still he got caught up in Deueval's musings. When the man came into money, he built a four-story house off Bird Cove Key on an island bird sanctuary in an apparent deal too good for the state of Florida to turn down. He had the house built with no doors and no glass in the hundreds of window frames, allowing free access to the bird population—video cameras everywhere, running twenty-four hours, seven days a week. The biggest birdhouse on the planet.

Giles learned all he could, to intersperse his knowledge into the conversations he hoped to have with Louisa in order to wrangle an invitation to cross her threshold. Once inside, he knew he could proceed with his own fanaticism which did not include birds.

“
Conrad Deueval earned his doctorate in the natural sciences and with his Ph.D. and his books chronicling bird activity and behavior, he proved there is little difference in the working brain of a bird and that of people, especially promiscuous men!” she said and laughed, blushing red. Giles recognized the little girl in the aging face, amid the pudgy cheeks and crease of her smile from nose to chin.

“
Have you... did you read his last book?” Giles asked.

“
The Frightening Truth About Ourselves? I have it on order at the local bookstore.”

“
I could get it far more quickly for you.”

“
How?”

“
I know the author,” lied Giles.

“
No! You don't! How?”

“
My uncle's roommate in college knew him.”

“
But Conrad Deueval's never finished college. He bought his degree sometime later. He could not be confined and chained down by academic bureaucracy and ballyhoo. A great man, a brilliant mind.”

“
Do you want the book tomorrow?”

“
You have that kind of access to the man?”

“
Well, two days. Give me two days.”

“
All right, you're on, but I insist on paying for your troubles.”

“
Only one kind of payment I would accept from you,” Giles replied, knowing he had her in his grasp.

“
What... what exactly did you... that is... do you have... in mind, young man?”

“
Oh, oh, please, nothing like that, ma'am, no! No way.”

She flushed, embarrassed. She pointed and spoke to cover her blushing cheeks in the frosty air. “Look at them.”

He followed her finger to the begging birds.

She added, “Watch how they play and fight among themselves.”

“
Just like people. Just as Deueval says.” He went back to his sketching of the birds as if he'd forgotten something he had to either touch up quickly or lose to memory. This invited her to come near, to stare over his shoulder at the sketch book, curious.

In his ear, she made a sound with her teeth. “Is it for a book? A magazine?”

“
What? This, the picture? No, I'm really not that good. It's just practice. I'm taking classes, you see.”

She examined the charcoal sketch he'd crafted.

“
How much?” she then asked.

“
Oh, I don't sell them. I'm not that good. Besides it's unfinished.”

She pursued him. “Name your price. I want at least four.”

“
Four? One for each wall?” he'd asked, joking.

“
Yes as a matter of fact.”

“
Okay... Okay... I'll give you the bird sketches if you'll sit for me.”

“
Sit for you? You mean as... some sort of—”

“
As centerpiece to my homework, as an integral part of my getting a decent grade without having to hire some fake actor. I draw you, now, right here amid the—your birds.”

“
Oh, they're not my birds. They're free. No one owns these footloose feathers.”

At that moment, she seemed to him more lonely than reclusive. “I've seen you out here before, feeding them.” He allowed her a closer look at the work. “It calls for you to be in it,” he added and smiled. “The final drawing... perhaps a painting to follow... you should be in it alongside the birds, really.”

“
But if I sit for you, and you give me your work free of charge... what's in it for you?”

“
I learn my craft. It's a... you know... a challenge.”

They exchanged first names.

Wasting no time, Giles had then speed-sketched her into the work in progress, having earlier left a space for her likeness. She fit perfectly, looking like St. Francis amid the birds. Louisa loved it, taking it to her breast and asking for three more pictures just of the park and the birds.

“
When and where can I bring the other sketches to you?”

She pointed to her building. “One-oh-six is the number.”

He had watched her walk off, the November wind tugging at her coattails.

“
She's the perfect choice, isn't she?” he asked the birds.

HE had choked on the stuffy air in her hallway. When he'd knocked, she was careful to call through the door, asking who it might be—as if she had frequent visitors—a pretense born of pride and embarrassment, Giles imagined.

“
It's Giles... I have your finished drawings.”

She cracked the door, and seeing him, she threw it open. “You can't possibly be finished already!”

“
But I am. They were easy.” He held out the charcoal sketches. “They weren't hard, really.”

She looked at each one, praising each in turn. “Let me pay you something for these. They're beautiful.” She saw that he stared at her. “Oh, where are my manners? Come in... come in! It's become too cold out, hasn't it? I'll get you something that will warm your giblet. You must be hungry, too. It's so wonderful to be able to create like you do. It must be so fulfilling and rewarding. Such a gift. Such talent. Were you born with it? Of course, you were, but you must have had to cultivate it as well. Like the seed into the flower, to see it flourish, you must see it nourished, as they say. I once tried my hand at watercolors... once... once was enough.” She twittered instead of laughing. “Everyone in the class was so good, and my stuff... it was... well, pitiful.”

Giles gave the appearance of caring to listen to her non stop chatter. It'd been as if a floodgate were opened. Once inside, with the door closed, Giles heard a man's voice through the thin wall say, “Plumber, ma'am! You called for a plumber?”

It registered with Giles that he mustn't give Louisa a chance to scream out.

Giles had grown somewhat fond of the bird lady. While not decrepit or elderly, Louisa seemed far older than Giles's twenty-two years—perhaps by some fifteen or twenty years—he thought. She was neither pretty nor ugly, only plain—like her choice of clothes, her face a featureless sky, no life in her eyes until and unless she were speaking of or to her birds.

She had turned her back to him and gone straight into the kitchen. Once there, she poured him a drink—Jack Daniel's, softening it with water from an Ice Mountain bottle. She immediately began building him the sandwich, and offered him breadsticks while he waited. In between she said, “Take your hat and gloves off. Stay awhile.”

He patiently waited, biding his time, alert to the right moment when it came. The creation of the sandwich finished, and it handed to him, Giles took a couple of bites and swallowed down some whiskey.

She went back to the sketches she'd laid on the kitchen table, glancing at them with admiration. “The sketches... I'm going to frame each and place each one up on the walls. Now you must take something for your troubles, Giles. I insist.”

She gazed to her purse on the table, placed the sketches down and lifted the purse. Rifling through for cash, she turned toward him.

“
I don't want your money, Louisa.” His tone made her look up from the purse and into his eyes. From a darkened corner, her cat growled and hissed at him, and she said, “Now, Archer, bad cat! You stop that now. This is our guest—Giles. You remember, I told you all about Giles, and that he might be coming by to visit with us.”

“
If you really want to help me, you'll sit for me,” he said. “But please, I won't take your money.”

“
I can do that, sit. In fact, it's one of the best things I do, indeed.” Lightly laughing at her own little joke, Louisa again lifted the sketches, studying them. Then she said, “Giles, you didn't sign the sketches.”

“
Forget about the sketches for the moment and concentrate on me,” he said, staring into her eyes. She saw something she could not read flash across those cobalt-blue eyes. He still hadn't taken off his gloves or his hat, only the overcoat.

“
Giles, why don't you take off your hat and those gloves?”

“
I'm still cold,” he repeated.

“
Jack Daniel's'll help with that.” She poured him a second tumbler full and went to the fridge for the water.

“
I want you to sit for me now, Louisa,” he told her as she placed the glass in his hands.

“
Why didn't you sign the sketches, Giles? They're beautiful. You must see that. You, young man, are an artist of extraordinary talent.”

“
Careful of that word. Talent usually means the end result of years of preparation.” He put aside his barely tasted sandwich. “In the living room, on the floor, Louisa. I want to sketch you lying on the floor.”

“
Lying on the floor? Really? Now?”

“
In the supine position.”

“
You mean lounging on pillows?”

“
Yes, with your clothes off.”

“
Nude! I hardly know you, Giles.”

“
I only want to draw you, Louisa. I have no intention of taking advantage of you or to lose the mutual respect and admiration we have. Besides, our age difference alone is... is...“Is what?” she sounded scolding.

“
Ahhh... incompatible.”

She shook her head, almost laughed but frowned instead. “Incompatible, indeed.”

“
I mean it could only lead to no good, and I wouldn't dare jeopardize our newfound friendship.”

In the back of his head, a voice told him to get on with it, to drop all pretense and take what he wanted and swiftly.

She smiled. “You're right, of course, but you have a lot to learn about how to flatter a girl... ahhh... woman.” She blushed at the underlying suggestiveness, and that they were dancing around such a subject at all. “I suggest you read Men Are from—”

“
Mars... Women... from Venus. I have, but it hasn't helped.” He laughed on cue.

Having made him laugh struck her as amazing, and he saw that, for a millisecond, she appeared to fight back a heart-wrenching tear. A quiet coyness filtered into her voice. “I'm not sure if I should be pleased about this age difference thing, or if I should take offense.”

“
Calmly now, Louisa, go into the other room, get comfortable with the idea and the pillows and the floor and the nudity. You will be beautiful when I am done with you, I promise. I promise.”