Planet Willie (7 page)

“I mean look
at that painting,” she says, turning towards the fruit bowl with the apples.

“I did,” I
say, “and I just couldn’t get over those apples.”

“Yes!” she
cries, nodding her head as she turns to look me in the eyes. “I mean that’s
just something so beautiful to me. And why don’t people care? Sometimes I get
the feeling they’re laughing at me when I say something like that.”

“Nobody’s
buying?” I say.

“Not tonight,”
she says.

“You could use
the money,” I say.

Her eyes shoot
such fire that it’s a miracle I stay on my feet. “I did not steal that Madonna,
or paint it, or swap it, or whatever it is you say I did,” she says. “I have
had threats from all kinds of people ever since I came up here, and I’m most
certainly not going to take it from you.”

“Threats?” I
catch a little hitch in her eyes, like maybe she’s forgot a line, not that this
detracts in any way from the performance, and not that I’m any less charmed.

She glances at
the musicians, then glances back at me. “Nevermind,” she says. “I forgot for a
moment who I was talking to. But you didn’t by any chance send me those letters
last week?”

“Sweetheart, I
wish I had,” I say. “If only I could have found the words. Got stuck trying to
find a rhyme for
kama sutra
. What letters?”

“I’m being
blackmailed too,” she says lightly, “and I thought that if you’re capable of
making these kinds of accusations, you might be capable of that too.”

“No doubt I
am,” I say. “But really I’m just here for the painting. Sooner rather than
later, if you don’t mind.”

“You’re
wasting your time,” she says, “Mister
private investigator
.” Spits it
out like it’s got a taste, then looks out across the room to make it clear
she’s finished with me. Which draws our attention to Billy and Twiggy, who are
moving through the crowd handing out brochures and may need a little reigning
in.

“What’s that?”
she says.

“Oh that’s
just Billy Sidell and Twiggy,” I say. “They’re into pheromones.”

“Just what I
need,” she sighs, eyes flicking across the room. “Get me a drink and then get
out of here. Tell my father he’s disowned.”

So I step over
to the bar, where I have to wait on the champagne, and by the time I turn to move
back towards the music, Fernanda has slipped off to another circle and is
talking a blue streak, as if she can put some distance between us with
vocabulary. I move over towards her with the glass, which she takes without a
glance for yours truly. Unfortunately her glance is for none other than Miss
Havisham, who catches the emergency in the boss’s eyes and starts bearing down
on me at high speed. She body-checks me right out of that circle, and before I
can yell rape she’s giving me two options of my own: I can leave, or she can
call the police.

“Question for
you, Havisham,” I say as she hooks her arm through mine and drags me across the
floor. “Albania is a fascinating country, I understand, and based on our
encounter this afternoon, it’s a sentiment I imagine you share. So the question
– why did you have me followed, and what has that got to do with Albania?”

But she just
keeps dragging me for the door. I look back at Fernanda, but as far as she’s
concerned, I’m just another guy in a cape. Nor is there any smile yet designed
by man to get Havisham talking, so there’s really no choice but to concede
round one to the art thieves and hone the body and mind for the rounds to come.
In the meantime, I tell Havisham I’ll just call Fernanda in the morning, if
she’d let her know, since now doesn’t seem to be a good time. Havisham says
she’ll be out of town the next day, and the next day and the next if I’m calling.

Then
thankfully there’s Billy Sidell, God bless him. Never have I had a better veep.
He’s handed out all his brochures with the help of Twiggy, has two days of meetings
scheduled, and has somehow persuaded the caterers to rustle up a bottle of Jack
Daniels. I lead them out to the sidewalk, grab the bottle, and apply liberally.

“The night is
but a fetus, Billy,” I say. “What do you and Twiggy here have in mind?” Twiggy
appears ready to follow Billy to the ends of the earth, or at least, I’m
guessing from my last conversation with Kafka, to where she imagines we’ve got
that Madonna stashed.

Billy looks up
at me with a big drunk grin. “I’m a huge golfer,” he says. I look down at the
bottle, and there are two types of people in this world: those who say the
bottle’s half full, and those who say it’s half empty. This one’s most
definitely half empty.

“Good man,” I
say. “So where does that leave you, me, and Twiggy?” And why not have her
along, I’m thinking. It’s not yet midnight, and maybe there’s still something
to be learned. Also she’s showing more flesh than an average person naked. So
exciting it almost shuts down the libido completely. Like a little built-in
safety valve. She catches me contemplating the little piercing in her belly
button and says, “You shut up.”

“She says
there’s a driving range open late not far from here,” Billy says.

I look up at
Twiggy. She looks down at Billy. “It’s in Chelsea,” she says to him.

“Alright
then,” I say to Billy, so he can relate the message back up to Twiggy. “Bit of
a golfer myself,” I say, “if you count streaking the Westwood Hills Putt-Putt
back in the winter of ’79.”

From where
we’re standing it looks like Twiggy rolls her eyes, but she’s so far up there
when her posture’s working that maybe that’s just blinking. Through her
translator this comes out as, “Drita thinks it might be fun.”

“Who’s Drita?”
I ask.

Billy busts
out laughing such that I can’t make out a clear answer. “Alright then,” I say.
“Let’s vamoose. There are golf balls out there in need of deliverance, and a
thousand taxi cabs cruising to take us to the moon.”

8

The driving
range is this impressive multi-level affair aimed out at the shores of New Jersey. Wall Street bankers and college kids in baseball caps smash balls out towards these
little flags set up on astroturf under lights. We buy ourselves three of these
cards they’ve got at fifty dollars a pop, paid for by the generous Harry Shore. You pick out a driver, find yourself a stall, put your card in a little slot,
and a ball just pops up on a tee there for you. Makes you feel you’ve already
taken a few strokes off your game just standing there watching that technology
work. We’re set up on the third level and do ourselves some stretching, deep
knee bends, breathing exercises and the like, then Billy steps right up to the
plate. Quite a cut, Billy takes. Misses the first five tries but keeps at it,
which is in the spirit and admirable if you ask me. On the sixth try he manages
to nick the thing, and it dribbles off about a foot from the tee. Another ball
pops right up in its place, which is about all Billy can take. He picks up the
first ball and hurls it out there as far as he can, screaming, “
Go
,
dammit!”

Meanwhile
Twiggy is taking a few practice swings with a driver about as tall as Billy. Nice
and easy, she does it, and her skirt, if we can agree to call it that, flips up
real gratifyingly each time. Probably the most beautiful golf swing I’ve ever
seen, but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying. Flutters my cape a little
on the backswing, and I fear for the city of Hoboken. Then, once she’s cleared
some air around her, she steps back away from the tee and bends over to check
her alignment or whatever. Turns out that from certain angles she’s not wearing
anything at all. Real freedom of movement there. Everything goes real quiet all
down the line except for Billy, who’s hitting what he can like the enemy’s
closing in fast. The rest of us are watching Twiggy, who steps back around to
the ball and smashes the poor thing clear out across the Hudson River. Have I
mentioned she’s wearing the sort of high heels they’ve banned on commercial
flights? I see at least five investment bankers down the line drop their clubs
and give up the game of golf forever.

Given the
circumstances, I decide to work on my putting game a bit. They say it’s the
short game where you really make the difference, so I roll a few out there nice
and easy. Of course you have to imagine the holes yourself, but this is the
sort of thing I’m accustomed to, and I’m four for four when I hear Twiggy behind
me saying, “I’m bored.”

“Not now,
honey,” Billy says, gritting his teeth and spraying the astroturf at about
fourteen rounds per second.

I give Twiggy
a reassuring little nod. She rolls her eyes for maybe the tenth time that
evening. “You need a new trick,” I say to her, then turning to Billy: “Twiggy
and I are going for a beer in the clubhouse.” Billy may or may not hear this.
He’s mumbling something about somebody saying hello to his leetle friend.

“I, like many
people,” I say once we’ve settled into a booth in the clubhouse, “am greatly
concerned by our nation’s abuse of its natural resources.” Then I take a little
sip of beer to give this sentiment the necessary time to sink in. “Particularly
gold lamé,” I say. “And I want you to know that I have nothing but admiration
for your willingness here tonight, through your sparing use of said lamé, to save
at least two or three lamés from certain extinction.” She’s taken a cigarette
from her purse and blows a long stream of smoke into my face.

“You’re a
fascinating woman, Twiggy,” I say. “Why don’t you tell me a little something
about yourself. I’m not only curious – I am downright fascinated.” She stares
up at the lighting fixtures for maybe a minute or two. Then she looks right at
me and tells me my time is up.

I tell her
I’ve been waiting for a line like that all evening. “You shut up,” she says.
Then she gives me what she calls her ultimatum. My partner Billy and I are to
tell Fernanda and somebody named Alberto to give up the Madonna – or a hundred
thousand dollars – to the members of ALF before noon the next day.

What’s even
more astonishing than this piece of news is that I manage to keep a straight
face, especially considering what entertaining and imaginative stuff it is. She
says she knows all about my business with Fernanda, and that they’ve been on my
trail from the start. From this I take it Kafka hasn’t gotten up the nerve to
report back to the troops on how he lost my trail, not that I can blame him. So
I explain to the lovely Twiggy that if I had business with Fernanda, I wouldn’t
be sitting there with her in a golf clubhouse, as much as I love golf and as
charming as she is. “What does ALF have to do with this anyway?” But she goes
deaf again. If there is a muscle in her face, I have not seen evidence of it.
“And more importantly, who’s this Alberto?”

That really gets
her. She hisses through her teeth. He touches a nerve, this Alberto. Yes, apparently
she does have nerves.

“Okay,” I say.
“Let me try another one. Let’s indulge your fantasy life a bit. What happens
when ALF doesn’t get the painting or the money?”

“Then we will
sell a fake Madonna into the market,” she says. “Then we will sell another one,
and then another one.” She tells me that they have prepared many fakes. She tells
me that they have experts in reproduction.

“I guess
everybody likes to think of himself as an expert in that department,” I say. “Though
I guess I’ve never found that special little lady I’d like to settle down with and
raise a flock.” And in case you’re wondering, no, Caroline most certainly did
not count.

Twiggy looks
at me like I’m Montenegro, or whatever Albania’s arch-enemy is. “The fakes will
be indistinguishable from the original,” she says. “The fakes will be just as
beautiful, done with just as much skill. The fakes will be worth nothing, but
their existence will compromise the value falsely attached to
masterpieces
by the market. Tell Fernanda all of this. In the end it will be very much
cheaper for her to pay us the money.”

When I ask her
how they’re going to paint all these beautiful reproductions without the
original to go by, she tells me that Alberto got a photograph and offers what
may be a smile. I get to smiling too with the mention of that photograph, the
properly midnight blue version of which still happens to be down my left boot.
I tell her I thought this Alberto was the enemy, she tells me that this Alberto
has disappeared. I’m thinking how I’d like to get to know him when Billy
staggers in so drenched in sweat that you have to wonder whether he got a
little carried away with the follow-through and ended up in the Hudson. His
hat’s dented in a few places and there’s an ugly looking bruise on his face
that could use some attention.

Twiggy’s not
going to be the one to give it to him, however. As Billy sits down, she gulps the
rest of her beer and storms out of the clubhouse. I buy him a beer to ease his
pains.

“This’ll give
us a second to talk,” he says, watching Twiggy go, as is just about everybody
in the place. She gets most of the room grinning, but Billy’s not looking too
happy. “She’s a really nice girl,” he says.

“She sure is.”

“You know I
told you about my wife,” he says, smirking up at me from under the brim of his
hat. “What should I do? What about Betty Boo?” What should he do? Run for the hills.
Catch a boat sailing far, far away. But the light’s in his eyes, and because
I’ve gotten to like ol’ Billy, I make an attempt at something a bit more
reassuring.

“You ever read
any Nietzsche?” I ask. He shakes his head. “There’s this principle of his he
calls Occam’s Razor,” I say. “Ever hear of Occam or his razor?” Apparently not.

“What this
principle says is that no decision ever benefits by more information than is
necessary,” I say. “More often than not, when faced with a decision, your
instinct has already done the work faster than your brain can. Thinking about
it just delays what you already know. That, my friend, is my advice.”

“Then where’d
she go,” he says, making his beer disappear quick. I turn around. She’s out of
sight. I tell him I think she left, he flies out of there faster than any golf
ball he’s ever hit. He’ll encounter some difficulties if he finds her, I
imagine, but then I’m encountering difficulties of my own. Sinking beneath the
weight of too much information, so to speak. Too many Kafkas and Havishams and
Albertos out there. More loose ends than ALF has fake Madonnas. I sit there
drinking and try to tie a few together, but the more I think, the more loose
ends I’ve got. Finally I’m left no choice but to drink a little faster and whip
out Erasmus from my suit pocket in the hopes of remaining philosophical about
it all. After a while I come upon this, which with the day I’ve had sounds just
about right: “To know nothing is the happiest life.”