The Italian Teacher(73)

The two friends haven’t spoken since that interrupted call—Bear has kept the cell phone ever since. In the kitchen he pours three hefty wallops of calvados into pottery mugs, plonking these on the long table. The old man dominates the conversation, even when instructing Marsden to recount his herculean labors on the hillside. Pinch sustains a polite front, toes curled. He needs to know why Bear rushed him here. Yet he sits there, nodding, and would listen for days if it’d delay his expulsion from this place, which feels so much his, invaded by their voices.

Realistically, he sees no way out. Even if Bear doesn’t know yet, Pinch can’t leave Marsden here indefinitely, spying on an old painter. Pinch envisages the revulsion on his father’s face and looks down at the thighs of his corduroys.

Bear keeps topping off everyone’s drinks. “The fire roaring, the booze flowing—what else could a guy want, save a few nice gals, hey? Though I can’t speak for all of us in that department, am I right?” He shoves Marsden’s thick shoulder, chuckling.

Smiling back, Marsden unlaces his boots and massages his sore feet, casting a quick nod to Pinch: Maybe everything is okay.

“I had this friend once,” Bear says. “Helluva guy; tough as nails. Worked nights for the police down in Boca Raton. Interesting line of work. There’s a real trick to it, he told me.”

“Trick to what?” Pinch asks tensely.

“You never, ever accuse the guy,” Bear replies. “He’ll deny, flat out. And then you’re screwed. Because he’ll stick to that line, out of pride, if nothing more. Now he’s in a jam, and so are you. The way to do it, my buddy told me, is don’t ask the guy if he’s guilty. You ask why. Because anything a man does, it can be explained. Give him a chance to make sense of it all, by his own logic.”

They fall silent, the buzz of a fly.

Bear lights his pipe, the cloud thickening around his head.

He reaches for the calvados, pours the dregs into Marsden’s glass. “That painting,” he says.

“What painting?” Marsden responds.

“The one you took. Tell us what you liked about it.”

Marsden sits upright, astonished. “That I took?”

“What I can’t figure,” Bear continues, “is how you got my studio keys. More impressive is that you whisked it away. Shows what a sucker I am without these specs on me.” He takes off his glasses, places them on the table. “Wouldn’t hurt to know who you gave it to. I’m assuming you sold it already. And you got your reasons. You needed dough. Or just like shiny objects. Hey, nobody’s hanging you from the ceiling. Let’s just hear what happened.”

Marsden says, “I didn’t take anything.”

“You heard what I said before,” Bear insists. “I’m looking to understand.”

“Dad, he didn’t.”

“Go through my stuff, if you don’t believe me,” Marsden says.

“Of course you didn’t leave it in your stuff! What do you take me for?”

“Dad, are you positive something’s missing?” Pinch asks. “You know that for sure?”

Bear’s chair legs screech back. He stands, pointing at Marsden, a forefinger so arthritic as to resemble a sideways twig. “You had your chance. Call the cops, Charlie.”

“What are you talking about? No, Dad.”

“You can tell them in French, goddammit. Why do you think I brought you here? Get the police, and I’ll forget it was you who sent this rat my way.”

Pinch stares into his sticky glass of liquor; he views the wood-plank floor. Somehow, he can’t find the words for a confession. “Dad, I have keys.” It’s all he can say. Then: “That painting has been gone for ages. I needed help at the time.” He will never mention Birdie—Pinch vows that to himself.

“Got to be kidding,” Bear says, wincing as if force-fed a battery. “You?” He rests his pipe on the kitchen table.

“Bear?” Marsden interjects. “You said things can be explained if you hear a person’s reasons. And he had reasons.”

Bear turns vehemently to Marsden, as if his son weren’t here. “Do you have any idea what that painting was? It was the guy’s mother. His mother, Natalie, who took her own fucking life—who put a goddamn bag over her head!”

“I know what happened to her, Dad!”

“And he profits off that?”

“I didn’t profit off it. This wasn’t for money.”

“Not for money? Oh, sure.” Bear rears around, takes a step toward Pinch, jabbing his forefinger almost into his son’s eyes, which are averted. “My whole life, I’ve been making something of my time on this earth. And you’d wipe that out.” He shakes his head, bitterly disappointed, addressing Marsden. “He doesn’t say a word to defend himself. Silence. Dead silence.” Suffering the outrage afresh, Bear bellows at Pinch. “How dare you?”

Pinch’s legs carry him down the driveway toward his car. His father bundles out of the cottage, Marsden alongside, a hand at Bear’s elbow, ready to intervene. At the car door, Bear clutches his son’s lapel, digs in his pockets. “Give ’em over!”

Pinch takes out a key ring, which Bear snatches away. “In my studio! Snooping around! Stealing from me! Who did you think you’re dealing with? Who are you to me?”