Planet Willie (13 page)

15

Erasmus writes
in his book that if you keep thinking about what you want to do or what you
hope will happen, you won’t do it, and it won’t happen. I’ve gotten an early
start on the day, whether I like it or not, so I’ve decided to take some
inspiration from the little Dutchman. Stop thinking and start doing. Pack the
suitcase and move on out. I dress and brush my teeth. Then I remember the
thirty-eight in the minibar and fish around in there for it, only to find that
it’s stuck to the side of the freezer box. I tug on it a bit but can’t get a
grip, until it’s clear that this is going to require something a little more
scientific. I consider taking the whole damn minibar down to Denver with me,
but if you’ve ever tried to haul a minibar up to your shoulder, you know why I
don’t. Then I figure I could just unplug the thing and wait it out, but there’s
got to be a better solution, I think, so I call up room service and order ten
coffees on the double. The guy on the other end of the line wants to check my
figures, but I assure him we’re talking double digits, and if it was on the
double, now it’s on the triple.

“Are you
currently taking any medications?” he says.

“None legally
prescribed by a doctor,” I say.

“Any known history
of heart troubles in the family?”

“None if we
don’t count the broken ones, which might take us to breakfast tomorrow.”

“Alright then,
Mister Lee,” he says. “We’ll have them up there on the quadruple.”

That’s
service, I tell him. Let him know that only few times in my life have I had
such pleasure talking to room service. Hugo, as the fella’s called, says the
feeling’s mutual. I ask him if they by any chance do rental cars, seeing as how
I’ve got some business to tend to in the capital city. He says they do, but he
can get me a better deal with a buddy of his down at an agency in town and can have
something waiting in half an hour. Bravo, I say, but you’ll have to excuse me
now as there’s been a knock at my door. I know, he says. Enjoy the coffee.

It’s the same
little girl I saw out in the hallway not more than an hour before. She stands
there with ten cups of coffee on her tray, and when she sees it’s me, they
start rattling like an earthquake’s hit. I take the tray from her and lead her
into the room. She sees minibar opened to the gun and squeaks like a mouse.

“I’m a private
investigator,” I say to her. She just nods. “Aren’t you going to ask me what
I’m investigating?” She nods again. “To make a long story short,” I say, reaching
for my wallet, “the mystery of the human condition.” Hand her a fifty dollar
bill. “I don’t imagine I’ll have to use it,” I say, nodding over at the gun, “but
you can never be too sure.”

She’s gone
before I can even offer her a cup, so I take up a couple of my own, get down on
my knees and splash them up into the minibar towards the gun. There’s a little
cracking noise, which I take as a good sign, and then I get a little river of
caffeine flowing past my boots, which can’t be too good for the leather. Then I
take up another couple of cups and get up in there for another attempt, and
this time with another crack the gun just slides out as polite as you please
into the palm of my hand. That leaves me with six cups of coffee, which if
you’ve never attempted I wouldn’t advise. With two you’re feeling pretty good,
and three makes you near invincible, four gets a little depressing, but five
brings you up a bit again, then with six you’re more or less Frankenstein’s
monster. I mean I’m walking down the hill towards town and the rental agency, and
out of the corner of my eye the pine needles are bursting off the trees like
fireworks. It’s alive! I’m seeing stars, but when I try to chase them down,
they turn into butterflies and flutter off.

Hugo’s buddy
Flavio meets me on a backstreet at what I guess is his own personal rental
establishment, or maybe his home. When he hands me the keys to an El Camino, I
can’t say I like it, but I’m on a mission and bravely choose to ignore the fact
that I’m cruising down the mountain in a car that wishes it was a truck. Even
downhill she only gets up to about fifty, but with the kind of caffeine running
through my veins, fifty feels like twice that, and I grip the wheel in fear for
my life all the way down to Denver.

Once in town I
find a phone booth and use some remaining quarters to call the number on Jeffrey’s
scrap of paper, which gets me the switchboard at Denver University. I tell the
kid who answers that I need to speak to Professor Barry Farsinelli on urgent art
business. He laughs and tells me I’ll need the art department, then transfers
me over to a girl called Sherry, who tells me the professor’s working from home
today. After a bit of pleasant flirtation, she also tells me his address.

Then I put in
a few more quarters and dial the number of the police station in South Texas. I ask to speak to Jimbo James. It’s not the kind of thing you want to make a
habit of doing, but I’ve got a question or two that have been weighing on my
mind. Jimbo comes on the line and asks where I’ve been. I tell him Vail, Colorado, he asks what they’re holding me for and if the police up here need any
cooperation from his department.

“Let me know
when you take this on the road, Jimbo,” I say,  “so I can be sure and buy me a
ticket.”

“From what I
hear you can’t afford one,” he says, which I ignore. I couldn’t begin to
explain to someone – and especially not to Jimbo – how little money means to an
angel.

“Got a
question for you. I’m looking for an Alberto Pasha and was wondering if that
name rings a bell to any of the great minds in that department of yours.”

“Funny you
should ask, Willie,” Jimbo says. “We’d like to talk with Mister Pasha
ourselves. We found his car abandoned out at the fisherman’s wharf. Found it
with five grams of cocaine in the glove box. You know anything about that?
What’s this Mister Pasha to you?”

“Professional
secrets, Jimbo. He may be involved in a case I’m working on.”

“Knowledge of
a crime is still a crime, Lee.”

“You bring up
an interesting point,” I say. “And I’ll be sure to call if I learn anything
about Mister Pasha, but in the meantime I have information about another crime
that I feel it’s my duty to share.”

“Oh yeah?” he
says, voice rising just a touch. “What’s that?”

“The shooting
of a certain William Lee four years, eight months, and twenty days ago. The
perpetrator was wearing a pink paisley shirt, which I don’t believe was ever
mentioned to the police. Correct me if I’m wrong, but pink paisley is just the
sort of thing you’d wear when not in uniform, assuming you ever take off that
uniform these days.”

He laughs so
hard I have to hold the phone away from my ear to keep from going deaf. Not
like Jimbo, laughing. Sounds like a bad case of smoker’s cough. “What’s so
funny?” I say, popping in another quarter to make sure I don’t miss the answer.

“The only
person I know gay enough to wear pink paisley is the victim in that shooting. So
I’m developing a theory that the victim caught a glimpse of himself in the
mirror and decided the world would be a better place if he ended his life.”

“It’s a
theory, Jimbo,” I say, “and it’s reassuring to know that you can, in fact,
develop a theory. So while you’re on a roll, are there any other known wearers
of pink paisley you can think of besides the unfortunate victim, who happened
to have moved on from pink paisley about a decade ago?”

“Hmm,” he
says, clearly enjoying this more than I ever will. “Another gay male? Only one
I can think of would be the fella the gay victim’s wife left him for, although
I’m not so sure he’s gay. Might just be castrated, like every man this woman
meets. Richard Susan does wear some flashy duds, however.”

Of course
Susan’s been tops on my list since the day I went up, but I can’t believe he
could identify the trigger end of a gun. Maybe he had something to do with my
death, but I doubt he’s the one who did it. The truth is, he never rated me
highly enough to want to kill me. “What exactly do you mean by
castrated
,
Jimbo?”

“You’re asking
me?” he says, and does a bit more of that laughing. “I shouldn’t have to tell
you this, but that woman twists men around her finger and flosses her teeth
with them. She’s given Susan about a dozen reasons to shoot her, and they all
tend to be half her age with shaved chests.”

“Anyone
particular come to mind? Anyone with a fondness for diving boards, by any
chance?”

“I guess
you’re thinking of Rock Lightford, and yeah, he’d do just as well as any of the
others. By the way, if you know anything about Lightford, you’d better fess up.
He hasn’t been seen in weeks, and his mother down in Freeport called the other
day to report a missing person. He was a favorite in the senior nationals this
year.”

“You think
Susan might have done something to him?”

More laughter.
Jimbo’s apparently becoming a real jovial character. “Richard Susan? That guy
gets a splinter on a construction site, he gets all emotional and has to take
the day off. Apparently he hasn’t held a hammer in years. Worried about the
pedicure.”

“So what’s
Caroline up to?” I say, making a tactical decision not to attempt to explain to
Jimbo the difference between fingernails and toenails. “And I don’t mean
marrying Susan, which is a mystery all to itself. What I mean is that I just
can’t believe she’s suddenly found a passion for the triple lindy, or whatever
she does. When we were young, we’d go over to Sandy’s pond – remember that? – and
she’d be too scared to jump in. I’m telling you, on our honeymoon, she wouldn’t
even get her ankles wet at the beach.”

Jimbo starts
to say something, but that’s the moment my windfall of Manhattan quarters
finally runs out, and instead of something that might begin to make a bit of
sense, I’m hearing nothing but dial tone.

Making matters
worse, if that’s possible, when I get back to the El Camino, Ralph, who’s more
or less a dial tone in human form, is sitting behind the wheel and telling me
to get in.

16

Farsinelli’s
house is on a block near the university that looks like it was built up sometime
in the nineteen-fifties. Oaks and spruce shade two-bedroom houses with
screened-in porches and paint peeling off in places. Farsinelli’s is peeling all
over, and the lawn needs a machete taken to it before you could imagine
bringing in a lawnmower.

On the ride
over I’ve explained the situation to Ralph. He doesn’t like the Farsinelli
angle, or any other angle on Planet Earth, really, other than the one his fist
took towards my face, three descriptions of which I’ve heard in two blocks.
Swallowing my pride, I’ve managed to convince him that since we’ve lost
Fernanda, Farsinelli may be the best shot we’ve got of finding her again.

“
You’ve
lost her,” he says, driving along in first gear while nervously checking the
mirrors. It’s clearly been a while since Ralph’s been on the road, and it’s
also clear that he’s not going to be leaving my side anytime soon if he can help
it, so I reluctantly agree to let him wait in the car while I hop inside to
investigate Farsinelli. Not that he really leaves me any other choice. “I don’t
want to hurt you again,” he says with this sadistic grin.

“Dear Lord,” I
murmur, quickly shutting my eyes. “I realize we’re meant to love all of your
creatures, so please give me the strength to love this creature to my left.
Also please give my best to Saint Chief. Tell him it’s all coming together, and
that I may have a few bonus souls for him by the time this is over, but
unfortunately our friend Ralph may be a lost cause. You didn’t hear that from
me. Also, is it true he was killed when he dropped a barbell on his head? Nevermind.
I know you can’t answer back, but I’d sure be curious to know. Might explain a
few things. Okay then, hasta la vista, Amen.”

Then I take my
leave of the Barbell, who’s got his eyes closed too, apparently praying in on
another line. I walk up the slate path to the house. It’s a warm day down there
in Denver with the sun shooting through the leaves, and I come up to a girl in
a sundress, maybe eight or nine, trimming rose hedges. I watch her unfold these
clippers at least half her size and stand there studying the roses like she’s
the Garden Society. She snips off a leaf or two, so concentrated I don’t think
she’s heard me come up. I look down at my suit jacket and see I’ve got a
boutonniere that could use a little refreshing, so I ask her if she’ll trade
roses. She looks up at me real slow through some thick eyeglasses like she knew
I was there all the time but didn’t want to begin thinking about how she would
ever get me in shape for the Garden Society.

“I guess it
doesn’t matter,” she says. Lops me off a white one and hands it over with all
five fingers pinched up in a little rosebud of her own.

“That’s where
you’re wrong…Miss Farsinelli, if I’m not mistaken. May not matter to other
people out there, but it counts for you and me.”

“Actually
they’re just a mongrel variety,” she says, pushing her blonde bangs up off her
face, “but I guess they brighten up the place. They’re my hobby. Do you know
hobbies?”

“Rather not
get into it,” I say. “They tend to be PG-13, I guess you could say, and you’re
not more than twelve if I’m not mistaken.”

“I can handle
it,” she says.

“I’d prefer to
speak to your father first,” I say. “Get his permission, so to speak.”

She nods,
thinking this one over, then sticks out her arm. “Mindy Farsinelli,” she says.
“I guess you’re here about the paintings.”

“What
paintings would those be, Mindy?”

“School of Botticelli Madonnas,” she says. “We’ve had three of them in the past two days.”

“Apparently it’s
a very popular school,” I say.

“Not the
school,” she says, squinting up into the sunlight. “It’s just one painting,
except that nobody knows which one is the real one, so they all come to my
father. There are some people up there now, but you can wait if you want.”

“The pleasure
would be all mine, Miss Farsinelli,” I say, tipping my hat. “Willie P. Lee. I’ll
leave you to guess the P.”

She turns to
whack off a few leaves, then turns back. “Pilose,” she says. “It’s a synonym
for hairy.”

“Precisely,” I
say. “Precisely indeed.”

“Do you know
synonyms,” she says.

“Make the
world seem all fresh and new, don’t they. Could you let your dad know I’m here?”

“He’s in up his
study,” she says, turning away again. “But you could speak to mother, I guess.”

I step up onto
the stoop and knock at the screen door, then stand there waiting. Mindy watches
me out of the corner of her eye, then pulls out a little walkie-talkie from a
pocket in her dress, pushes a button and says: “Mom. Come in, Mom. A Mister
Willie P. Lee here to see Barry.”

After a minute
or two I see the lady in question coming down the hallway in curves that have gotten
away from her a bit, but make a nice contrast between man and woman that gets
you considering. She’s got curly red hair with strands of gray through it and
one of those cheery Irish faces that get the joke without you having to make
it. Takes off a lot of the pressure, a face like that. Makes everything easy.
She’s wearing one of those long flowing dresses that women tend to wear when
they get a little older and fill out and don’t get enough attention. She looks
me up and down with her pinky hooked over her bottom teeth and her lips bunched
up around it.

“Special
delivery,” I say.

“I see,” she
says with the kind of grin you don’t really know what to do with in a PG-13
setting.

“I was hoping
to see your husband,” I say.

“Let me
guess,” she says. “About a painting.”

“More or less,”
I say. “I take it I’m not the only one.”

“Believe it or
not,” she coos, and out the corner of my eye I can see Mindy wincing, “in his
old age Barry has become popular. I’m Bella. Come on in.”

She leads me
up the hallway in these leather flip-flops, toenails painted purple. In the
kitchen she has me take a seat and brushes a hip against my arm. Though
admittedly I’m not much up on the science of feminine hormones, it’s safe to
say she’s laying them on thicker than the dishes they’ve got piled up in the sink.
She sees me checking out the housecleaning, laughs a sad little laugh, and
picks up a walkie-talkie off the table.

“Mindy,” she
says into the walkie-talkie, “the dishes aren’t done, and I’ve got company.” Setting
down the radio, she asks if I’d like a drink. She’s having gin, she says. I
tell her I’ll have one too, although honestly I’m sorry to make another glass for
Mindy. She takes up the bottle from the countertop and splashes out the drinks.
Grabs a chair and sits real close, runs two fingers down the lapel of my suit,
offering me a glimpse into the kind of cleavage that makes you think of working
up a little death by suffocation scenario for yourself. Would have been a hell
of a lot more satisfying than bullets shot by men in pink paisley.

“How long are
you in Denver?” she says.

“Just passing
through, Bella,” I say. “Really I just wanted to see your husband for a moment.”

“I’ll have
Mindy make up a bed so you can at least stay the night.”

“I wouldn’t
want to trouble you,” I say, as Mindy marches in straight-backed to take up her
post at the sink, ignoring us completely.

“But it’s no
trouble to me,” she says.

“Your
husband’s a busy man,” I say.

“Stop it, Willie.
We don’t have long.” And just as she says it, a middle-aged couple comes clomping
down the stairwell to the kitchen. He’s got a Blue Madonna rolled up under his
arm like it’s the daily paper. I take it the verdict’s fake.

“Any luck?”
Bella says.

“Don’t
bother,” the woman snaps at me, not too pleased with the way she’s spent her morning.

“We were in
there for two hours,” the man says.

“We had to go
through the whole history of art,” the woman says.

“And then
carbon dating, and natural color pigments, and I mean I just don’t
care
.”

“Even if it
had been worth a million bucks, I wouldn’t do it again.”

“Barry’s
fascinating, isn’t he,” Bella says, rolling her eyes. Mindy drops a plate in
the sink, but nobody pays it much attention. The couple leaves without saying
goodbye, and then there are some more sounds from the stairwell and the
professor comes stumbling into the kitchen. His curly gray hair is grabbed up
into a mess, his face is unshaven, and his clothes are at least three sizes too
big, which makes him look even skinnier than he probably is.

“This is just
all so incredible,” he says breathlessly. “Imagine the odds. I understand
there’s someone else, Bella?”

“Yes,” she
says, turning slowly to him as she sips her drink. “This is Willie Lee.”

“Yes, I
heard,” he says. “Willie P. Lee. Why don’t you come up to my study, Mister Lee.
It was me you wanted to see, wasn’t it?”

Mindy glances quickly
at the three of us. I give her a little wink. She rolls her eyes and goes back
to the scrubbing. I thank Bella for the drink and follow the professor up to
his study. He closes the door behind us and invites me to take a seat, which
I’d love to but I’m having trouble locating one, considering that the office,
at least what I can see of it in the dim light, is more or less all paper. I
mean there may have been furniture in there at one time, but now you’ve just
got stacks of paper sort of shaped like furniture. In the end I choose a couchy
stack of what looks like the complete Rocky Mountain News, 1977 edition. The
professor takes a seat on a chair of art magazines behind a desk of student
essays.

“I trust Mindy
gave you a pleasant welcome,” he says.

“Very pleasant
girl,” I say. “She has your eyes.”

“I think you
mean she has my spectacles,” he says, peering at me from behind his own, which
are as thick as bottle glass. “The rest of her is all Bella, but unfortunately
she inherited my eyesight. Not only are we both half-blind, but we’re extremely
sensitive to light. I hope it’s not too dark for you in here.”

“Not at all, Professor.”

“Although perhaps
Mindy did inherit my temperament,” he says, following his train of thought.
“She’s certainly not the calamitous bundle of instinct you saw down there in
the kitchen.”

“You mean your
wife.”

“Now what did
you say I could do for you?” he says, choosing to ignore this. I assume that
with Bella he’s in the habit of ignoring quite a bit.

“Your eyesight
must be quite a disadvantage for a man in your profession,” I say. “I mean
being an art historian and expert in the school of Botticelli.”

“It’s
terrible, isn’t it,” he says, laughing to himself. “Although in my opinion a
Botticelli blurry is finer than just about any other painter crystal clear. Wasn’t
he just amazing!”

“And quite a
school, if you ask me. Sort of place you’d want to send your kids if you could
afford it and they spoke Italian.”

“Indeed,” he says, nodding his head like no truer words were ever spoke. “And as far as the
work I do authenticating paintings, you might be very interested to know that with
the advances we’ve made in recent years, much of my job is done in the lab.
Amazing, isn’t it. Of course there’s no substitute for old-fashioned expertise,
but more often than not, through methods more scientific than artistic, we can
date and often authenticate a painting without even looking at it. First of all
there is carbon. Everything that lives or has once lived contains carbon. This
includes pigments derived from plants, naturally, and so in the laboratory we
can….”

“I don’t want
to take too much of your time, professor,” I say. “Although it does all sound
fascinating. Really I just wanted to ask if you recall authenticating the
original Blue Madonna quite a few years back.”

“Oh yes I do,”
he says. “In fact it was one of the first Botticellis I ever saw in the United States. I had done graduate work in Florence, and of course Florence is a gold mine
for someone in my field.”

“Do you
remember the man who owned it.”

“Yes of course,”
he says. “His insurance company flew me to New York for a consultation. Harry Shore was his name, I believe. He was confined to a wheelchair, I remember, but
rarely have I met a more forceful man.”

“Do you
remember how much you judged the painting to be worth?”

“That’s not
really my department,” he says. “I don’t buy or sell them, I just authenticate
them. But judging by today’s market, I should think it’s worth at least a
million dollars.”

“I happen to
be working for Mister Shore,” I say. “The painting you saw has been stolen from
his house, which through a series of events I’d rather not get into explains
all these fakes turning up.”

“It’s
astonishing,” he says, “and he’ll have a nightmare with his insurance company.
But I don’t mind helping out if people come to me. In fact there are several
tests I can do right here in my study. Just yesterday I was able to do a few
simple color tests on the reds in the Madonna you’re referring to, and I
explained to the nice woman who brought it in that the natural red pigments
used in Italy during the Renaissance would have long since….”

“Interesting
stuff,” I say, beginning to understand here why Bella may be looking for a friend,
as pigments never talk dirty and shut off the lights. “Do you remember the
woman’s name?”

“I’m sorry I
don’t think I do,” he says.

“Well has
anyone from the Shore family been in contact with you? They’re concerned, to
put it mildly.”

“I’m sure they
are,” he says. “But no, I haven’t spoken to them.”

“Mister Shore has a daughter named Fernanda. Did you ever meet her?”

“Fernanda? No,
I don’t believe I have. He was married at the time, I remember, but I don’t
recall him having any daughters.”