Blood Relations (43 page)

“I was just passing by and saw you.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t blame Rafael. I held a gun to his head.”

“And here you are.” She shifted her weight to her other foot. The guy was still waiting for her, twirling his car keys.

Sam hadn’t decided in advance what to say. Then suddenly, from nowhere, he knew what he wanted. He said, “Did you keep those photos of Matthew?”

She looked at him awhile, then said, “They’re in Storage.”

“I’ve changed my mind. I’d like to have them.”

They got in his car and drove north on Alton Road after Caitlin told the owner of the jet ski concession that she didn’t need a ride. She pulled a bottle of Evian out of her bag and a cellophane pack of Cuban crackers, thick round wafers, curved from the baking.

“Bread and water,” he noticed. “Can I buy you some lunch?”

“I’m not hungry.” She nibbled on a cracker. “This is enough.”

“What’s going on with you and Frank?”

She looked at him through her dark glasses. “Nothing.

We split up.” Then she laughed. Her mouth was wide and full, and she wore no lipstick. “You lawyers ask such loaded questions. What do you really want to know? Caitlin, are you seeing Frank again? Caitlin, have you slid back into your old ways-again?” She unscrewed the cap on her bottle. “No, Mr. Hagen. I have not.”

7 Sam braked at a traffic light. “Rafael said Frank beat you UP.”

“I knew it. Soon as you said I you talked to Rafael. He gets so dramatic.” She took a long drink of water.

“Caitlin, if I promise not to go over to Frank’s office and kick the living shit out of him, would you please answer the question?”

She exhaled. “He didn’t hit me. Satisfied?” She bit into another cracker.

“Didn’t slash your tires?” Sam could hear his voice rising. “Send you filthy letters? Didn’t force you out of your apartment?”

“Not really.” She concentrated on the cracker. “We had a fight when I left him. He pushed me. I pushed him. We screamed at each other. We’ve done it before, but I finally got fed up and walked out. And he wants me back. He’s persistent, what can I tell you?”

::So he cuts your tires and sends you obscene letters.”

I don’t know who did the tires. I park on the street, all right?” She pulled off her sunglasses and shook back her hair. “Do I look beat up to you? Do IT’

Her skin was smooth and unbroken. He said, “I was worried.”

“Well, thank you.” She put her glasses back on. “The letters weren’t obscene, they’re pathetic. I was going to move out anyway. I didn’t f6el safe living alone after Sullivan died, and then George. You just never know. Oh, lord, I’ve got crumbs all over.” She brushed the crumbs dotting her bare thighs into her palm, then wet her forefinger and dabbed at the tiny pieces. Her legs were shaved smooth, with fine, golden hairs closer to the hem of her shorts. “Your car’s so clean, I’m afraid to ride in it.” She pressed the automatic window button and dusted her hands off.

Sam let out a breath and rubbed his forehead. His elbow leaned on the door.

She looked at him. “You sound exhausted.”

“I’m fine.” He slowed at Sixteenth to cut behind Lincoln Road, which was closed to auto traffic. Caitlin had told him to go to the DeMarco Gallery. Her friend Paula had let her siore some things in a back room.

Caitlin’s face was turned toward the window now.

“Sam, I’m sorry about last week. I shouldn’t have kicked you out.”

“Forget it.” He saw a parking place along the curb, then put an arm over the seat to back up. “Ruffini and Lamont were arraigned this morning.”

“Yes, I know - Ali told me.”

“Their attorneys want to take your statement as soon as possible. You going to be around? I can accept a subpoena for deposition on your behalf.” The engine was still on. Cold air blew through the vents.

Caitlin smiled archly. “What o you want? The pictures? Or are you making sure you still have a witness left on Ali’s case?”

“Do IT’ He took the keys out of the ignition.

Her lips were set into a thin line. She said, “Ali went through hell that night. I won’t run away to New York and forget it ever happened.”

“You-didn’t”-tell me you’d moved out of your apartment. What was suppoied to think?”

“I would have called you.” She got out and slammed the door.

They walked along the narrow street, then onto Lincoln Road to the DeMarco allery, which was deserted except for a clerk reading a magazine. Caidin told him she had to get something out of the back room.

ice then opened a paint She led Sam past the off ead bulb spattered door and turned on a light, an overh that contributed little to illumination. The left side of the narrow room was taken up with metal cabinets and vertical wooden slots for paintings and prints-Not much was left; the season was over. Caitlin’s things were stacked to the right, a disorderly pile of cardboard boxes in varying sizes and shapes, picked up at a supermarket. They had once held cans, bottles, cereal, paper goods. Now the contents were noted in black tuff. Sheets and towels. Clothes. Film marker. Kitchen s and paper.

When Caitlin closed the door a tremor danced through floated in Sam’s muscles and settled in his gut. Dust beams of light coming through a small, barred window near the ceiling. No sound intruded. He looked at the stack of boxes, the deep shadows they made. There was no oxygen in the room. He pulled in a breath.

“I won’t ask you to search through all this. When you get to New York and unpack, just put the photos in the mail,”

Caitlin set her camera bag on the floor, then laid her hat and sunglasses on a cabinet. “No, it’s all right. I remember where they are. Help me move some of these, will you? They’re heavy. You never think you have that much, till you try to pack it all into boxes.”

“Where’s the furniture9”

“I gave some away. Most of it I left behind. It was secondhand, anyway. Let Frank worry about it.”

Sam shifted boxes of books as Caitlin directed. She picked up a former pasta box marked winter clothes, leaning back to balance the weight.

“Do you ever wish you could reduce your life to the barest possible? Maybe to fit inside one suitcase. Or a bag to throw over your shoulder. Then you could go wherever you wanted, whenever. Just float away as the mood strikes.” Laughing a little, she dropped the box beside audio-video. Then she studied the pile still left. She pointed. “There. That one.”

The box was thick cardboard, about one foot by two.

Zephyrhills Natural Spring Water. 6 gal. Now marked in heavy black, Prints and Portraits. It was against the wall, but away from the window and off the floor, protected. Sam looked around as if someone had come through the door. He gripped his right wrist and flexed his fingers.

Caitlin said, “Sam? Can you get that?”

“Sure.” He braced a foot and reached over the boxes spread out on the floor. Unlike most of the others, this one was sealed with packing tape. Caitlin sat on her heels and worked a thumbnail under a corner.

Sam leaned against the cabinet.

The tape came off and she folded back the flaps. Inside, under a layer of newspaper, were dozens of folders and envelopes. Her fingers moved quickly along the top edges, then stopped and tugged on a white envelope.

Matthew Stavros Hagen.

Caitlin stood up and turned around. She said Sam’s name and it took him a second to hear her.

He raised his eyes.

She said, “You don’t have to take them.”

“Why notT’

“You might not like them. They aren’t glamorous.”

He smiled, held out his hand. “I’m sure they’re very nice. Dina will be pleased. I said we had photos, and we do, mostly from when he was a kid. We took loads of snapshots on vacation, both the kids, actually, but I don’t think we have any portraits. Dina’s got his book from his modeling days, you know, and she complains the pictures in there don’t look like him.”

Caitlin stared at him. She still held the envelope against her chest. “Maybe you should see these before you take them home.”

“All right.” He felt his pocket, pulled out his glasses.

Caitlin gave him the envelope, and Sam moved closer to the light coming in through the window.

There were a dozen photographs, big enlargements, all blackand-white, eleven by fifteen.

Interesting lighting. High contrast. Good balance, use of negative space. Caitlin had told him about photography. What to look for. They were all taken the same day, apparently. In her studio, a drape of white in the background. But no attempt to hide what was behind that: the concrete walls of the studio, the lights, the bare floor.

Matthew in a pair of worn-out jeans hanging off his hips. His hair needing a wash, coming just to his shoulders. A young man’s stomach, every muscle defined.

Some hair on his chest, which Sam recalled he had waxed off for a swimsuit ad. The vanity of these kids.

The pant legs were too long, hems frayed. Big, higharched feet. Standing there with his thumbs hooked in his pockets.

Next photo. Matthew off the ground, legs tucked under, hair flying, covering his face, blurred by the movement.

Arms stretched out, hands wide open, reaching. A tattoo just above his left nipple. Sam peered closer. A half moon. When the hell had he gotten that? It must have been covered with makeup for his bookings.

Then Matthew standing still, arms crossed over his chest. Heavy biceps. He’d put on some muscle that sum EL

mer. He was staring into the lens. Angular face, sharp nose. Not the pretty boy in the ads. Age already tracing faint lines into his wide forehead.

What was he thinking of ? So serious. Not a kid you could scare easily. But he wasn’t a kid anymore. A man.

But not that, either. He was somewhere between. But where? .

Sam took a breath. The floor seemed to tilt.

More photos. Matthew laughing, God only knew at what. Smile gone, then back again, a soft expression in his eyes. Gentle. Then a profile, hair thick and wavy on a pale cheek. Then again looking into the lens. Sam touched Matthew’s face and was surprised to feel only smooth paper under his fingertips.

Lights making bright dots in Matthew’s eyes. White space around him getting less and less. Sam falling into the photograph.

The camera had focused so closely. Each hair in his dark, straight eyebrows, each eyelash. A chip in one tooth, a blemish on his cheek. Full lips, a glint of saliva.

Stubble on his chin. Not a heavy beard, not yet.

Sam realized, after a time, that he was sitting on one of Caitlin’s boxes. He felt her lightly bump his shoulder, reaching to take the portraits. They vanished upward. He heard the paper whispering against the envelope.

Then her hand was on his hair. He turned and reached for her, pressed his face into her stomach and cried. She wrapped her arms around his head.

“I loved him.” Sam took a heavy breath, then another.

“Whatever Matthew did or was or would have become, I loved him. And I never told him.”

“He knew,” she whispered.

Sam shook his head.

“Yes. Believe me, Sam. Please.” She lay her cheek on his head. “Matthew told me. He said that’s how you are.

He even laughed about it, said one day you’d get off his case. But he respected you so much, as a father. As a man.”

Sam felt something shift and crumble in his chest. He ached from the pain of it. Caitlin knelt to take his face in her hands and say his name. She put her arms around him and kissed his eyes, his mouth. He groaned aloud, tasting salt and heat.

He shifted on the box to pull her between his thighs, and she pressed into him. He let her go long enough to look behind them, to find the box of towels, brace himself, and stretch out an arm. He flipped the box over and the folded towels inside spilled out, disarrayed.

He couldn’t hold her closely enough, get into her far enough. She cried out, muffling the noise against his shoulder. Blood roared in his ears, shutting out everything but the feel, the sound, the smell of her. The tightness giving way. Sparks behind his eyelids, then a long, sweet, breathless fall.

When Sam finally opened his eyes, his left leg was under a box that had tumbled down. Caitlin looked as if she’d been knocked unconscious, her hair in her face.

He was still inside her. Everything wet. He thrust slowly, felt her tighten in echoes of the spasms that he’d felt before.

Her breath was raspy. She still had her yellow shirt on, pushed up now above one breast. He kissed its peak, then straightened her shirt and pushed her hair off her face.

She locked her arms around his waist. “No. Don’t get up yet.”

“Caidin. My pants are around my knees. What if that guy walks in here?”

She made a low chuckle. “I think that would be as funny as hell.”

“For who?”

“Give me a towel,” she said, opening one eye.

They dressed. Then Sam lifted the boxes into place again while Caitlin brushed her hair.

She’d had them arranged in no discernible order before, but now he worked at getting the heavier ones on the bottom and the entire stack closer to the wall, out of the way.

He watched her as he worked.

“I should never have left you, Caitlin.”

She paused, arms raised, hairbrush behind her head.

She pulled it through her hair.

He said, “I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“It was,” she said. “You had a family. We wouldn’t have been happy.”

“Neither of us is happy now. Nobody is. What if I’d had the guts to take what I wanted? Matthew called me a hypocrite. He was right. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so angry. Maybe he wouldn’t have selfdestructed.”

“Don’t, Sam. You’ll make yourself crazy, talking like that.”

When she turned to put the brush away, he kissed her neck. “I want to start over with you.”

She smiled, shaking her head. “As if nothing had ever happened?”

“We have to talk about it.”

“All right. But not now.”

“I know. When?”

“In a day or two. Call me. I’ll give you the number.”

She glanced at the white envelope on the cabinet. “What about the pictures of Matthew?”

Sam looked at the envelope, frowning.

Caidin laughed. “I guess it would be hard to explain to your wife where you got them.” She bit her lips.