Still Lives(59)

She looks up. From this angle, her once flawless face looks mousy and frightened.

“Oh, that’s okay—” I say.

“No, no. Fresh coffee, please,” he says, and I suppress a flinch as the gallerina grabs her purse and stands up to leave.

Goetz opens the door to his office. I enter first. He shuts it behind me and stands against it a moment, regarding my face, before circling to his desk. The room is filled with shelves of art catalogs. I recognize their bulky, oversize shapes, and the smaller bound paperbacks that are auction catalogs. Ordinarily such a collection would reassure me. Thinking people read. I like thinking people. I like people who like art. But the air in here is musty and oppressive, and there are several boxes on the floor, also full of books, and no place to put them.

“So, Sheilah,” he says genially. “Tell me about this profile.”

He takes a seat behind his desk, and instead of waiting for my answer, he begins clacking at his computer. I can’t see the screen.

“Well, I’m awfully sorry it’s a surprise,” I say earnestly. “Development wanted us to do a profile in each issue on our biggest donors, and we’re really grateful for your support. It’s helped enormously with shows like Still Lives.”

His typing pauses. He sits back in his chair, making it creak. He is heavier than he looks in his photographs. He has large hands. But the scariest thing about him is the overbearing friendliness in his features, as if he wants to drive me into the ground with his pleasantness, as if he wants to smear it all over me.

“How nice,” he says, smiling.

“So I got a lot of good information about you online,” I say, and tell him what I know about his philanthropy and his schooling at Yates.

Goetz’s shoulders relax as it becomes clear how much research I’ve already done, and he corrects only the date of his degree. All the while, I’m trying to glean what I can from scanning the titles around me. They’re all contemporary art. I don’t see any book pertaining to Kim Lord. What else is here? A long modern desk, a computer, a leather chair. An empty vase with a broad base and narrow flute—could it be Japanese? Back in a corner, a white birdcage hangs from its own stand, its door ajar. In the other corner sit stacks of embroidered textiles, their colors too bright to be American. The souvenirs of a world traveler.

As Goetz tells me about the latest beneficiaries of his Patron Foundation, my eyes return to the birdcage, the thin, straight bars banded once in the middle, and what looks like a winged carving inside, also white. The stand is white. Even the links of the short chain it hangs from: white. A lustered white, almost cream, and smooth as bone.

The cage, its captive bird—the entire piece is made of ivory.

So maybe he bought something illegal, or maybe he collects antiquities. It’s an odd piece, but not unusual for a rich man to own something so ornate and rare.

Yet as I stare at the cage’s open door, all the book titles I skimmed moments ago start playing like credits: Marlene Dumas, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith. Every catalog, every artist lined up neatly on his shelves: they are all women.

“Promise you won’t put my messy office in your profile,” Goetz says, catching my gaze. “I haven’t finished unpacking.”

“Of course not.” We both laugh.

He leans toward his screen and clicks the mouse a few times. “Anything else?”

I need more. I make my next move.

“There’s one last thing,” I say. “I’d like to get a quote or two to spice this up. Are you okay with playing a little word game?”

“A little game,” he says, with another mouse click. “What does that mean?”

“It sounds silly, but it’s a fun way to get to know people,” I say. “Our members love reading the answers, too. It goes like this. I say a word, and you say whatever comes to your mind. So if I said sunset, you might say boulevard. Or you might say beautiful or beach.”

“Why not,” he says. “I like games.”

“Okay,” I say. “The first word is museum.”

“Treasure.”

“Art.”

“Necessary,” he says.

“Artist.”

“Maker.”

“Collector,” I say.

“Creator.”

I almost falter. “Andy Warhol.”

“Factory.”

“Agnes Martin.”

“Faded.”

“Kim Lord.”

“Missing,” he says in an unreadable tone. The fake smile is on his face, but he is watching me.

“I’m sorry,” I say, coughing, because I can’t think of another word. I can’t think of anything. I just want to bolt from here.

“You’re not on the Rocque staff contact list, Sheilah,” he says.

“I’m new there,” I say.

There’s a pause. His plastic smile warps into a pained leer. “Did Kim send you?” he says, a thickness in his voice.

“No,” I say, astonished.

“Where is she?” His eyes bore into me, and he doesn’t move, but his words are clogged with emotion. “Why don’t you tell me before I call the police?”

I reach the door before him. I take the stairs just as the gallerina is coming up, bearing her cardboard tray with two coffees, and push past her, knocking her off-balance so that she cries out and the coffee splatters on the stairs. “Sorry,” I shout, and make it to my car before I can breathe again.