Daughter of Regals (40 page)

And when I reached 49th,
I didn’t know which way to turn. Sweating, I stopped at the intersection and
looked round. 49th seemed to stretch to the ends of the world in both
directions. Anything was possible; The Root Cellar might be anywhere. I was in
some kind of business district—49th was lined with prosperity—and the
side-walks were crowded again. But all the people moved as if nothing except
fatigue or stubbornness and the heat kept them from running for their lives. I
tried several times to stop one of them to ask directions; but it was like
trying to change the course of the river. I got glares and muttered curses, but
no help.

That was hard to
forgive. But forgiveness wasn’t my job. My job was to find some way to help
Reese Dona. So I some outright begging. And when begging failed, I simply let
the press of the crowds start me moving the same way they were going.

With my luck, this was
exactly the wrong direction. But I couldn’t think of any good reason to turn around 
so I kept walking, studying the buildings for any sign of a brownstone mansion
and muttering darkly against all those myths about how God answers prayer.

Ten blocks later, I
recanted. I came to a stove that filled the entire block and went up into the
sky for at least thirty floors; and in front of it stood my answer. He was a
scrawny old man in a dingy gray uniform with red epaulets and red stitching on
his cap; boredom or patience glazed his eyes. He was tending an iron pot that
hung from a rickety tripod. With the studious intention of a halfwit, he rang a
handbell to attract people’s attention.

The stitching on his cap
said, “Salvation Army.”

I went right up to him
and asked where The Root Cellar was.

He blinked at me as if I
were part of the heat and the haze. “Mission’s that way.” He nodded in the
direction I was going. “49th and Grand.”

“Thanks,. anyway,” I
said. I was glad to be able to give the old man a genuine smile. “That isn’t
what I need. I need to find The Root Cellar. It’s an art gallery. Supposed to
be somewhere on 49th.”

He went on blinking at
me until I started to think maybe he was deaf. Then, abruptly, he seemed to
arrive at some kind of recognition. Abandoning his post, he turned and entered
the store. Through the glass, I watched him go to his box-like half-a-booth
that hung on one wall. He found a large yellow book under the box, opened it,
and flipped the pages back and forth for a while.

Nodding at whatever he
found, he came back out to me. Down that way,” he said, indicating the
direction I’d come from. “About thirty blocks. Number 840.”

Suddenly, my heart
lifted. I closed my eyes for a moment to give thanks. Then I looked again at
the man who’d rescued me. “If I had any money,” I said, “I’d give it to you.

“If you had any money,”
he replied as if he knew who I was, “I wouldn’t take it. Go with God.”

I said, “I will,” and
started retracing my way up 49th. I felt a world better. But I also had a
growing sense of urgency. The longer I walked, the worse it got. The day was
getting away from me—and this day was the only one I had. Reese’s show was
tomorrow. Then Mortice Root would’ve fulfilled his part of the bargain. And the
price would have to be paid. I was sweating so hard my filthy old coat stuck to
my back; but I forced myself to walk as fast as the fleeing crowds.

After a while, the
people began to disappear from the sidewalks again, and the traffic thinned.
Then the business district came to an end, and I found myself in a slum so
ruined and hopeless I had to grit my teeth to keep up my courage. I felt
hostile eyes watching me from behind broken windows and gaping entrances. But
I was protected, either by daylight or by the way I looked.

Then the neighborhood
began to improve. The slum became close-built houses, clinging to dignity. The
houses moved apart from each other, giving themselves more room to breathe.
Trees appeared in the yards, even in the sidewalk. Lawns pushed the houses back
from the street, and each house seemed to be more ornate than the one beside
it. I would have thought they were homes, but most of them had discreet signs
indicating they were places of business. Several of them were shops that sold
antiques. One held a law firm. A stockbroker occupied a place the size of a
temple. I decided that this was where people came to do their shopping and
business when they were too rich to associate with their fellow human beings.

And there it was—a
brownstone mansion as elaborate as any I’d seen. It was large and square, three
stories tall, with a colonnaded entryway and a glass-domed structure that might
have been a greenhouse down the length of one side. The mailbox on the front
porch was neatly numbered, 840. And when I went up the walk to the porch, I
saws brass plaque on the door with words engraved on it. It said:

THE ROOT CELLAR

a private gallery

Mortice Root

At the sight, my chest
constricted as if I’d never done this before. But I’d already lost too much
time; I didn’t waste any more of it hesitating. I pressed a small button beside
the door and listened to chimes ringing faintly inside the house as if Mortice
Root had a cathedral in his basement.

For a while, nothing
happened. Then the door opened, and I felt a flow of cold air from inside,
followed by a man in a guard’s uniform, with a gun holstered on his hip and a
badge that said, “Nationwide Security” on his chest. As he looked out at me,
what he saw astonished him; not many of Root’s patrons looked like I did. Then
his face closed like a shutter. “Are you out of your mind?” he growled. “We don’t
give handouts here. Get lost.”

In response, I produced
my sweetest smile. “Fortunately, I don’t want a handout. I want to talk to
Mortice Root.”

He stared at me. “What
in hell makes you think Mr. Root wants to talk to you?”

“Ask him and find out,”
I replied. “Tell him I’m here to argue about Reese Dona.”

He would have slammed
the door in my face; but a hint of authority came back to me, and he couldn’t
do it. For a few moments, he gaped at me as if he were choking. Then he
muttered, “Wait here,” and escaped back into the house. As he closed the door,
the cool air breathing outward was cut off.

“Well, naturally,” I
murmured to the sodden heat, trying to keep myself on the bold side of dread. “The
people who come here to spend their money can’t be expected  just stand around
and sweat.”

The sound of voices came
dimly through the door. But I hadn’t heard the guard walk away, and I didn’t
hear anybody coming toward me. So I still wasn’t quite ready when the door
swung open again and Mortice Root stood in front of me with a cold breeze
washing unnaturally pest his shoulders.

We recognized each other
right away; and he grinned like a wolf. But I couldn’t match him. I was
staggered. I hadn’t expected him to be so
powerful.

He didn’t look powerful.
He looked as rich as Solomon—smooth, substantial, glib—as if he could buy and
sell the people who came here to give him their money. From the tips of his
gleaming shoes past the expanse of his distinctively styled suit to the clean
confidence of his shaven jowls, he was everything I wasn’t. But those things
only gave him worldly significance; they didn’t make him powerful. His true
strength was hidden behind the bland unction of his demeanor. It showed only in
his grin, in the slight, avid bulging of his eyes, In the wisps of hair that
stood out like hints of energy on either side of his bald crown.

His gaze made me feel grimy
and rather pathetic.

He studied me for a
moment. Then, with perfectly cruel kindness, he said, “Come in, come in. You
must be sweltering out there. It’s much nicer in here.”

He was that sure of
himself.

But I was willing to
accept permission, even from him. Before he could reconsider, I stepped past
him into the hallway.

As I looked around, cold
came swirling up my back, turning my sweat chill. At the end of this short,
deeply carpeted hall, Root’s mansion opened into an immense foyer nearly as
high as the building itself. Two mezzanines joined by broad stairways of carved
wood circled the walls; daylight shone downward from a skylight in the center
of the ceiling. A glance showed me that paintings were displayed around the
mezzanines, while the foyer itself held sculptures and carvings decorously set
on white pedestals. I couldn’t see anything that looked like Reese Dona’s work.

At my elbow, Root said, “I
believe you came to argue with me?” He was as smooth as oil.

I felt foolish and
awkward beside him, but I faced him as squarely as I could. “Maybe ‘contend’
would be a better word.”

“As you say.” He
chuckled in a way that somehow suggested both good humor and malice. “I look
forward to it.” Then he touched my arm, gestured me toward one side of the
foyer. “But let me show you what he’s doing these days. Perhaps you’ll change
your mind.”

For no good reason, I said,
“You know better than that.” But I went with him.

A long, wide passage
took us to the glass-domed structure I’d taken to be a greenhouse. Maybe it
was originally built for that; but Root had converted it, and I had to admit it
made an effective gallery—well-lit, spacious, and comfortable. In spite of all
that glass, the air stayed cool, almost chill.

Here I saw Reese’s new
work for the first time.

“Impressive, aren’t
they,” Root purred. He was mocking me.

But what he was doing to
Reese was worse.

There were at least
twenty of them, with room for a handful more—attractively set in niches along
one wall, proudly positioned on special pediments, cunningly juxtaposed in
corners so that they showed each other off. It was clear that any artist would
find an opportunity like this hard to resist.

But all the pieces were
black.

Reese had completely
changed his subject matter. Madonnas and children had been replaced by
gargoyles and twisted visions of the damned. Glimpses of nightmare leered from
their niches. Pain writhed on display, as if it had become an object of
ridicule. In a corner of the room, a ghoul devoured one infant while another
strove urgently to scream and failed.

And each of these new
images was alive with precisely the kind of vitality his earlier work lacked.
He had captured his visceral terrors in the act of pouncing at him.

As sculptures, they were
admirable; maybe even more than that. He had achieved some kind of breakthrough
here, tapped into sources of energy he’d always been unable or unwilling to
touch. All he needed now was balance.

But there was more to
these pieces than just skill and energy. There was also blackness.

Root’s clay.

Kristen was right. This
clay looked like dark water tinder the light of an evil moon. It looked like
marl mixed with blood until the mud congealed. And the more I studied what I
saw, the more these grotesque and brutal images gave the impression of growing
from the clay itself rather than from the independent mind of the artist. They
were not Reese’s fears and dreams refined by art; they’ were horrors he found
in the clay when his hands touched it. The real strength, the passion of these
pieces, came from the material Root supplied, not from Reese. No wonder he had
become so hollow-eyed and ragged. He was struggling desperately to control the
consequences of his bargain. Trying to prove to himself be wasn’t doing the
wrong thing.

For a moment, I felt a
touch of genuine pity for him. But it didn’t last. Maybe deep down in his soul
he was afraid of what he was doing and what it meant. But he was still doing
it. And he was paying for the chance to do such strong work with his sister’s
life.

Softly, my opponent
said, “It appears you don’t approve. I’m so sorry. But I’m afraid there’s
really nothing you can do about it. The artists of this world are uniquely
vulnerable. They wish to create beauty, and the world cares for nothing but
money. Even the cattle who will buy these”—he gave the room a dismissive flick
of the hand—”trivial pieces hold the artist in contempt.” He turned his
wolf-grin toward me again. “Failure makes fertile ground.”

I couldn’t pretend that
wasn’t true; so I asked bitterly, “Are you really going to keep your end of the
bargain? Are you really going to sell this stuff?”

“Oh, assuredly,” he replied.
“At least until the sister dies. Tomorrow. Perhaps the day after.” He chuckled happily.
“Then I suspect I’ll find myself too busy with other, more promising artists to
spend time on Reese Dona.”

I felt him glance at me,
gauging my helplessness. Then he went on unctuously, “Come, now, my friend. Why
glare so thunderously? Surely you realize that he has been using her in
precisely this manner for years. I’ve merely actualized the true state of their
relationship. But perhaps you’re too innocent to grasp how deeply he resents
her. It is the nature of beggars to resent those who give them gifts. He
resents
me.”
At that, Root laughed outright. He was not a man who gave
gifts to anybody. “I assure you that her present plight is of his own choice
and making.”

“No,” I said, more out
of stubbornness than conviction. “He just doesn’t understand what’s happening.”

Root shrugged. “Do you
think so? No matter. The point, as you must recognize, is that we have nothing
to contend
for.
The issue has already been decided.”

I didn’t say anything. I
wasn’t-as glib as he was. And anyway I was afraid he was right.

While I stood there and
chewed over all the things I wasn’t able to do, I heard doors opening and
closing somewhere in the distance. The heavy carpeting absorbed footsteps;
but it wasn’t long before Reese came striding into the greenhouse. He was so
tight with eagerness or suppressed fear he looked like he was about to snap.
As usual, he didn’t even see me when he first came into the room.