Duma Key(122)

"I don't know," I said. "Which was it?"

"Before. I think. Yes, before. Afterward, she'd pretty much lost interest in everything, including chucking the Sweet Owen tin into the pond for the umpteenth time. I brought the soup in her favorite mug, but she pushed it away so hard she slopped some on her poor old arm. She didn't even seem to feel it. Edgar, why are you asking these questions? What do you know?" He was pacing around with the cell phone to his ear. I could see him doing it.

"Nothing. I'm feeling around in the dark, for Chrissake."

"Yeah? Which arm you doing it with?"

That stopped me for a moment, but we had come too far and shared too much for lies, even when the truth was nuts. "My right one."

"All right," he said. "All right, Edgar. I wish I knew what was going on, that's all. Because something is."

" Maybe something is. How is she now?"

"Sleeping. And I'm interrupting you. You're working."

"No," I said, and tossed the brush aside. "I think this is done, and I think I'm also done for awhile. Just walking and shelling for me between now and the show."

"Noble aspirations, but I don't think you can do it. Not a workaholic like you."

"I think you're wrong."

"Okay, I'm wrong. Won't be the first time. Are you going to come down and visit with us tomorrow? I want you to see it if she lights up again."

"Count on it. And maybe we could hit a few tennis balls."

"Fine by me."

"Wireman, there's one other thing. Did Elizabeth ever paint?"

He laughed. "Who knows? I asked her once and she said she could hardly draw stick figures. She said her interest in the arts wasn't much different from the interest some wealthy alumni have in football and basketball. She joked about it, said-"

"If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter."

"Exactly. How'd you know?"

"It's an old one," I said. "See you tomorrow."

I hung up and stood where I was, watching the long light of evening fire up a Gulf sunset I had no urge to paint. They were the same words she'd used with Gene Hadlock. And I had no doubt that if I asked others, I'd hear the same anecdote once or twice or a dozen times: She said I can't even draw stick figures, she said if you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter. And why? Because an honest woman may occasionally goof the truth, but a good liar never varies her story.

I hadn't asked him about the red picnic basket, but I told myself that was all right; if it was in the attic of El Palacio, it would still be there the next day, and the day after that. I told myself there was time. Of course, that's what we always tell ourselves, isn't it? We can't imagine time running out, and God punishes us for what we can't imagine.

I looked at Girl and Ship No. 8 with something approaching distaste and threw the cover-sheet over it. I never added the red picnic hamper to the bowsprit; I never put a brush to that particular painting again the final mad descendent of my first sketch in Big Pink, the one I'd named Hello. No. 8 may have been the best thing I ever did, but in a strange way, I almost forgot it. Until the show, that was. After that I could never forget it.

vi

The picnic basket.

That damned red picnic basket full of her drawings.

How that haunts me.

Even now, four years later, I find myself playing the what-if game, wondering how much would have changed if I'd pushed everything else aside and gone hunting for it. It was found by Jack Cantori but by then it was too late.

And maybe I can't say for sure it wouldn't have changed anything, because some force was at work, both on Duma Key and inside Edgar Freemantle. Can I say that force brought me there? No. Can I say it didn't? No, I can't say that, either. But by the time March became April, it had begun to gain strength and ever so stealthily extend its reach.

That basket.

Elizabeth's damned picnic basket.

It was red.

vii

Wireman's hope that Elizabeth was coming around began to seem unjustified. She remained a muttering lump in her wheelchair, every now and then stirring enough to cry out for a cigarette in the cracked voice of an aging parrot. He hired Annmarie Whistler away from Bay Area Private Nursing to come in and help him four days a week. The extra help might have eased Wireman's workload, but it did little to comfort him; he was heartsore.

But that was something I only glimpsed from the corner of my eye as April rolled in, sunny and hot. Because, speaking of hot... there I was.

Once Mary Ire's interview was published, I became a local celebrity. Why not? Artist was good, especially in the Sarasota area. Artist Who Used to Build Banks and Then Turned His Back on Mammon was better. One-Armed Artist of Blazing Talent was the absolute Golden Motherf*cker. Dario and Jimmy scheduled a number of follow-up interviews, including one with Channel 6. I emerged from their Sarasota studio with a blinding headache and a complimentary CHANNEL 6 SUNCOAST WEATHER-WATCHER bumper sticker, which I ended up plastering on one of the MEAN DOGS sawhorses. Don't ask me why.

I also took over the Florida end of the travel-and-hospitality arrangements. Wireman was by then too busy trying to get Elizabeth to ingest anything but cigarette smoke. I found myself consulting with Pam every two or three days about the guest-list from Minnesota and travel arrangements from other parts of the country. Ilse called twice. I thought she was making an effort to sound cheerful, but I could have been wrong. My attempts to find out how her love-life was progressing were kindly but firmly blocked. Melinda called to ask for my hat-size, of all things. When I asked why, she wouldn't tell. Fifteen minutes after she hung up, I realized: she and her French ami really were buying me a f**king beret. I burst out laughing.