Skyscape (38 page)

Bruno closed his eyes and opened them again. Andy had always known so much more about popular culture.

Andy continued, “The actor was about to lose out on that role in that movie where the CIA hired an invisible man. Big part, big movie. And he went on
Red Patterson Live
, and the results were great. Even when some people said that Patterson ended up doing some of the dubbing, it didn't matter. People loved it. There was a book about it,
Voice in the Wilderness
, by Red Patterson and someone. I guarantee you that a Patterson/Newns painting would be worth more money than anything Curtis would paint by himself.”

“But people would hate it,” cried Bruno. He stood, and the waiter gave a slight bow and vanished.

“No, Bruno. You really don't know anything. Art people would hate it. Museums would hate it. But everyone else would be wild about it.”

“But if Patterson did something like that he'd be exposed as a—” Bruno stopped himself. What an old-fashioned-sounding word
fraud
was.

“He's a famous wonderful television doctor,” said Andy in a tone of reason, “and he just almost got assassinated. People
love
Red Patterson.”

Bruno couldn't say this: Patterson could finish the painting himself, if he had to.

Andy was being gentle, like a considerate teacher. “Don't take it so seriously. Curtis is just another artist. We're all artists, inside.”

Bruno tried to adopt something like his usual tone. “If Curtis is dead my career is on a stretcher, heading for the morgue.”

“Don't be silly. You'll be the big name when it comes to Curtis as long as you live. Maybe you could join forces with Red Patterson, and make a video on unlocking the artist within.”

Bruno felt heavy, a man made of lead. He felt that he had overlooked something vital, and now realized what it was.

He had been worried about the painting, worried about Curtis. Red Patterson was all that mattered. “I shouldn't have let Margaret go out there.”

Andy picked up the cigarettes and worked them into his shirt pocket. “You've got to be kidding. You know Red Patterson is supposed to be a fantastic lover.”

“Why did Red Patterson seem so interested in having me look at the painting and authenticate it?”

“I'm sure he was pleased. It makes him look good. Besides, in Patterson's eyes you're still important. He respects you. But—” Andy shrugged.

“People aren't that stupid.”

Andy gave him a smile. “The people on television are the people who matter.”

Bruno had no answer to that.

“Look over there,” said Andy. “That couple—they recognize you. She's trying to get the man to come over and get your autograph in the guidebook. Think what it would be like if you were Red Patterson.”

Bruno closed his eyes again. Swallows were squealing overhead, their cries spiraling, citadels sketched in the air. “The painting doesn't matter. Margaret doesn't matter. I don't matter—”

“Yes, you do. Because you've been on television. But Red Patterson is—” Andy gestured, indicating the Pantheon, the buildings, the city around them, the capitol of emperors and saints, of human beings turned into gods.

Andy looked different, now, his chest deeper, his eyes brighter. Andy was full of life, just as Bruno felt himself growing more and more empty.

“The future belongs to people like Red Patterson,” said Andy, sounding carefree, as though that was not only inevitable, but good.

The couple was Dutch, and she and her husband were sorry to interrupt. Bruno signed their guidebook, on a blank page under a scab of glue where the map had been removed.

The couple thanked Bruno, and departed.

“But Bruno,” Andy was saying, getting up, ready to leave. “You have to tell me—what is he really like?”

43

Margaret found herself on her knees, holding the envelope in her hands. The prongs of the envelope's clasp were askew, the glue of the flap unmoistened.

She tried to tell herself that this was only some sort of brutal joke. Someone, an anonymous scribbler, was trying to frighten her. It was ridiculous to take it seriously.

The words stopped everything, canceled every other thought.

She watched her hand move. She reached into the envelope. She let the pistol lie across the flat of her palm, and there was an instant in which she thought—or tried to think—it must be a toy.

Her face stared back, half-aware, from the mirror. The mirror was flawed with tarnish stains, and the infinity effect, the nautilus-chambered spill of Margarets and envelopes and handguns mocked her.

You should have given up a long time ago, her mother would have said. It was always hopeless where Curtis was concerned. You were always going to be too late.

She dressed quickly, tugging on running shoes, leaving her baseball shirt on so that it hung down, covering the pistol thrust into the front pocket of her jeans. It fit snugly, as though designed to be hidden in a pocket just like that, tucked away with just a little awkwardness in the way it felt, like carrying rolls of pennies in a pocket on the way to the bank.

The mirrored door to the hallway was locked. That was hardly a surprise. It made sense.
Oh, by the way, take this key and make sure Margaret is locked in so we can forget her for the night
.

She opened the window and the shutters, and felt herself standing at the edge of a void. She could not see the desert. She could smell it.

She hoisted herself onto the sill. The scent, fine and dry, swirled around her as it mixed with the air conditioning.
She won't try jumping out that window, little slip of a thing like that
. She knew that it was best not to think, to get it over with fast. She pushed off, into the dark.

There was enough time to wonder as she fell. How would she avoid hurting herself? A wind rose upward from the land she could not see, and she felt herself drifting, beginning to tumble sideways.

She sprawled.

She stood. She fell again, and when she was on her feet a second time she staggered to the wall of the villa and leaned against it for support. The wall was warm, stored heat at her cheek, at the bare skin of her arms.

They had been right. Anyone who jumped out of the bedroom window was in trouble. She tried to tell herself she wasn't hurt. She sensed an absence. There was something metallic on the stones, and she groped. She closed her hand around the gun, and worked it back into her pocket.

She ran, stumbling over stones, and found her way around the big house, all the way to the entrance of the garden. The pool light was still on, an azure glitter through the black stalks of trees.

Her breathing was loud. In the desert you can hear things far off, she told herself. She was no secret. Anyone could hear her panting like this.

Ahead of her, across the black of the landing strip apron, shined a light from one of the hangars, or from a garage. The light played out across the asphalt, and grease spots glistened. There were two sources of light, two interiors she could barely make out from here.

She was beginning to feel a delayed effect from her jump. She limped, and ran as hard and fast as she could, so she could reach the source of the light before her legs failed completely.

She made it to the garage. There was a car in the bright interior, all chrome and windshield in the sudden illumination as she slipped through the gap in the door.

She warned herself not to make a sound, but she couldn't help it. She was inside the car, reaching for the ignition, but the key was missing.

She was out of the car, out of the garage, stumbling, all the way to the next source of light. She was through the doorway, into the bright light of the hangar, halted by what she saw.

She had not expected to see so many. Airplanes waited, living things under the light from the metal-beamed ceiling. She had the impression of a war that had been stilled and captured, and stored here, of adventure kept, as hands cup a butterfly, power and freedom awaiting some distant morning.

The aircraft seemed to be living things, animation suspended, propellers still, each fuselage canted upward, and she had the impression that this was a boy's fantasy played out, a youth's love of the sky given its own playground.

There was something moving over by a workbench. Shadows pulsed. She sought the half-shelter of a Shell oil drum, and then approached the bench. It was only a moth, a big, chalky set of wings, chiming almost inaudibly off a lightbulb.

“We could always take one up,” said Red Patterson.

She turned and felt for the gun in her pocket to be sure it was there. She backed away from him, all the way against a corrugated aluminum wall.

He stepped through the doorway. He looked younger than he had earlier, dressed in a white shirt and pants like hers, jeans, except that his had a tear at one knee. There was a smudge of paint on one of his knuckles, bright yellow.

“I was in the studio,” he said. “Bishop told me you had flown, and I didn't believe it. I had to see for myself.”

“I won't be able to wait until tomorrow,” Margaret said.

“You don't know how many people I've seen with that trapped expression, the look of a jackrabbit in the headlights. It's the beginning of your future. You see it coming, and you're afraid of it. Tell me what you want to know.”

“Where is Curtis?”

“I saw the message Loretta Lee left you.” He paused, and when she said nothing, continued, “She shouldn't have tried to frighten you like that. What really concerns me is I think I know what she left in the envelope. It left an impression in the paper, the definite outline of something that could get you into serious trouble.” He paused, giving her time to respond. Then he said, “I am worried about you, Margaret.”

“I have to see him.”

“Tomorrow,” he said.

“I remember you saying on one of your shows that there is always only today.”

“Without trust there really isn't going to be any future, Margaret. It's your inability to have faith in life that is crippling you. Are you all right? I meant
cripple
metaphorically, but you actually hurt yourself, didn't you? I'm so sorry. It pains me to see you suffering. I've got something that'll make you feel a whole lot better.”

He was so relaxed, and so sure, that she had to doubt herself. “I want to be sure that Curtis is still alive.”

“Of course you do. But stop and think for a moment. Why wouldn't he be alive?”

There was an instant of chagrin. Red Patterson looked so confident. Margaret felt herself waver. How could she think like this?

“This is a Ryan S-T,” said Patterson. “Built about 1937. One hundred and twenty-five horsepower. Dual controls, front and back, open cockpits. Lovely plane. Over there we have the Lockheed Vega. Amelia Earhart flew one of these. It was the holder of several transcontinental speed records. A sweet piece of work. Over there we have the Stinson 105 Voyager. Bishop's been reconditioning this plane, but basically he never stops working.”

He was gazing dreamily at the aircraft. Now he turned to look at her. The moth continued to worry the light, and there was another sound, somewhere off among the shadowy aircraft. A footfall, she thought. Or another moth.

“There's something magic about art,” he said. “I don't mean the old, used-up magic, superstition. I mean the other kind—the kind that works. If a special work of art is destroyed we feel much worse than if several people we have never met are lost in a boating accident somewhere.”

Patterson picked up one end of an airhose, pink rubber tipped with bright brass. He wound the hose into a tight series of circles, and hung it on a hook. “You blow up some art in Florence and people are aghast. You blow up some people and we can't help but think that the individuals can be replaced.”

He's talking about Curtis, she thought.

“We're wrong, of course,” he said. “The people are alive and precious. But the art is sacred to us, out of another world. Not just a historical world. I mean out of the other world of the psyche, a world we don't really understand.”

“If I knew he was still alive,” she said, choosing not to speak his name. “If I could just see him.”

He gave her a look of compassion. “I've come to an understanding out here in recent weeks, Margaret. A wonderful understanding about life, and about myself. Just as a work of art is more important than a human being, so am I more important than you are. Because I am a kind of work of art, a creation of my own time just as surely as Michelangelo's
Moses
is a creation of his. As much as I love you, and Curtis, I am more important than either one of you.”

Margaret worked the pistol out of her pocket, and held it in both hands. The weapon drew itself upward, until it aimed itself at Red Patterson's chest.

Red Patterson had a sudden hungry look. He lost all appearance of confidence. Even so, he could smile. “Loretta Lee's gift to the future,” he said.

She held the gun. She did not speak.

“You're going to be so embarrassed when you realize what's been happening here. Besides, those pistols are more complicated than you think. A gun like that sometimes has two safeties, and then, if you're lucky and you get it working right, someone's dead. They're horrible things, really. Put it down.”

Curtis
.

“Margaret, do you realize what people will think if you shoot me? Do you realize how hated you'll be by so many people, all over the world?”

He lost that starved look in his eyes. “You won't do it, because you know that it would be like destroying the works of Monet, say, with the squeeze of a trigger, or demolishing the architecture of Rome with the push of a button. That's what it would be like, Margaret. You aren't alive the way I am. And you know it.”

“I know Curtis is dead.” She was weeping, her breath broken, but she held the gun steady.