Duma Key(130)

I mentioned this to Jimmy Yoshida in passing, and he nodded, seeming not angry or even irritated, but rather bemused. "There are a great many people here I either don't associate with the art scene or don't recognize at all," he said. "The size of this crowd is outside of my experience."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"God, no! But after years of fighting to keep our corporate heads above water, it feels strange to be carried along this way."

The Scoto's center gallery was large, which was a good thing that night. In spite of the food, drink, and music in the smaller rooms, the center seemed to be where most of the visitors eventually gravitated. The Girl and Ship series had been mounted there on almost invisible cords, directly down the center of the room. Wireman Looks West was on the wall at the far end. That one and Girl and Ship No. 8 were the only paintings in the show which I had stickered NFS, Wireman because the painting was his, No. 8 because I simply couldn't sell it.

"We keepin you up, boss?" Angel Slobotnik said from my left, as oblivious to his wife's elbow as ever.

"No," I said. "I was never more awake in my life, I just-"

A man in a suit that had to've cost two grand stuck out his hand. "Henry Vestick, Mr. Freemantle, First Sarasota Bank and Trust. Private Accounts. These are just marvelous. I am stunned. I am amazed."

"Thank you," I said, thinking he'd left out YOU MUST NOT STOP. "Very kind."

A business card appeared between his fingers. It was like watching a street-busker do a magic trick. Or would have been, if street-buskers wore Armani suits. "If there's anything I can do... I've written my phone numbers on the back home, cell, office."

"Very kind," I repeated. I couldn't think of anything else to say, and really, what did Mr. Vestick think I was going to do? Call him at home and thank him again? Ask him for a loan and offer him a painting as collateral?

"May I bring my wife over later and introduce her?" he asked, and I saw a look in his eyes. It wasn't exactly like the look that had been in Wireman's when he realized that I'd put the blocks to Candy Brown, but it was close. As if Vestick were a little afraid of me.

"Of course," I said, and he slipped away.

"You used to build branch banks for guys like that and then have to fight em when they didn't want to pay the overage," Angel said. He was in a blue off-the-rack suit and looked on the verge of bursting out of it in nine different directions, like The Incredible Hulk. "Back then he woulda thought you were just some moke tryin to mess up his day. Now he looks at you like you could shit gold belt-buckles."

"Angel, you stop!" Helen Slobotnik cried, simultaneously throwing another elbow and grabbing for his glass of champagne. He held it serenely out of her reach.

"Tell her it's the truth, boss!"

"I think it sort of is," I said.

And it wasn't only the banker I was getting that look from. The women... jeez. When my eyes met theirs, I caught a softening, a speculation, as if they were wondering how I might hold them with only the one arm. That was probably crazy, but -

I was grabbed from behind, almost yanked off my feet. My own glass of champagne would have spilled, but Angel snatched it deftly. I turned, and there was Kathi Green, smiling at me. She'd left the Rehab Gestapo far behind, at least for tonight; she was wearing a short, shimmery green dress that clung to every well-maintained inch of her, and in her heels she stood almost to my forehead. Standing beside her, towering over her, was Kamen. His enormous eyes swam benevolently behind his horn-rimmed glasses.

"Jesus, Kathi!" I cried. "What would you've done if you'd knocked me over?"

"Made you give me fifty," she said, smiling more widely than ever. Her eyes were full of tears. "Toldja that on the phone. Look at your tan, you handsome boy." The tears spilled over and she hugged me.

I hugged back, then shook hands with Kamen. His hand swallowed mine whole.

"Your plane is the way for men my size to fly," he said, and people turned in his direction. He had one of those deep James Earl Jones voices that can make supermarket circulars sound like the Book of Isaiah. "I enjoyed myself to the max, Edgar."

"It's not really mine, but thank you," I said. "Have either of you-"

"Mr. Freemantle?"

It was a lovely redhead whose generously freckled br**sts were in danger of tumbling from the top of a fragile pink dress. She had big green eyes. She looked about my daughter Melinda's age. Before I could say anything, she reached out and gently grasped my fingers.

"I just wanted to touch the hand that painted those pictures," she said. "Those wonderful, freaky pictures. God, you're amazing." She lifted my hand and kissed it. Then she pressed it to one of her br**sts. I could feel the rough pebble of the nipple through a thin gauze of chiffon. Then she was gone into the crowd.

"Does that happen often?" Kamen asked, and at the same moment Kathi asked, "So how's divorce treating you, Edgar?" They looked at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.

I understood what they were laughing at Edgar's Elvis moment but to me it just seemed weird. The rooms of the Scoto began to look a little like chambers in an undersea grotto, and I realized I could paint it that way: undersea rooms with paintings on their walls, paintings that were being looked at by schooling peoplefish while Neptune's Trio burbled "Octopus's Garden."