Duma Key(62)

"Price of poker just went up, my friend," someone said to Gin-Blossoms, and there was laughter. Gin-Blossoms joined in, but didn't look really amused.

I noticed all this as though in a dream.

Nannuzzi smiled at me, then turned to the patrons, who were still looking at my paintings. "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Freemantle didn't come in to sell anything today, only for an opinion on his work. Please respect his privacy and my professional situation." Whatever that is, I thought, bemused. "May I suggest that you browse the works on display while we step into the rear quarters for a little while? Ms. Aucoin, Mr. Brooks, and Mr. Castellano will be pleased to answer all your questions."

" My opinion is that you ought to sign this man up," said a severe-looking woman with her graying hair drawn back into a bun and a kind of wrecked beauty still lingering on her face. There was actually a smattering of applause. My feeling of being in a dream deepened.

An ethereal young man floated toward us from the rear. Nannuzzi might have summoned him, but I was damned if I knew just how. They spoke briefly, and then the young man produced a big roll of stickers. They were ovals with the letters NFS embossed on them in silver. Nannuzzi removed one, bent toward the first painting, then hesitated and gave me a look of reproach. "These haven't been sealed in any way."

"Uh... guess not," I said. I was blushing again. "I don't... exactly know what that is."

"Dario, what you're dealing with here is a true American primitive," said the severe-looking woman. "If he's been painting longer than three years, I'll buy you dinner at Zoria's, along with a bottle of wine." She turned her wrecked but still almost gorgeous face to me.

"When and if there's something for you to write about, Mary," Nannuzzi said, "I'll call you myself."

"You'd better," she said. "And I'm not even going to ask his name do you see what a good girl I am?" She twiddled her fingers at me and slipped through the little crowd.

"Not much need to ask," Jack said, and of course he was right. I had signed each of the oils in the lower left corner, just as neatly as I had signed all invoices, work orders, and contracts in my other life: Edgar Freemantle.

vii

Nannuzzi settled for dabbing his NFS stickers on the upper righthand corners of the paintings, where they stuck up like the tabs of file-folders. Then he led Wireman and me into his office. Jack was invited but elected to stay with the pictures.

In the office, Nannuzzi offered us coffee, which we declined, and water, which we accepted. I also accepted a couple of Tylenol capsules.

"Who was that woman?" Wireman asked.

"Mary Ire," Nannuzzi said. "She's a fixture on the Suncoast art scene. Publishes a free culture-vulture newspaper called Boulevard. It comes out once a month during most of the year, once every two weeks during the tourist season. She lives in Tampa in a coffin, according to some wits in this business. New local artists are her favorite thing."

"She looked extremely sharp," Wireman said.

Nannuzzi shrugged. "Mary's all right. She's helped a lot of artists, and she's been around forever. That makes her important in a town where we live to a large extent on the transient trade."

"I see," Wireman said. I was glad someone did. "She's a facilitator."

"More," Nannuzzi said. "She's a kind of docent. We like to keep her happy. If we can, of course."

Wireman was nodding. "There's a nice artist-and-gallery economy here on the west coast of Florida. Mary Ire understands it and fosters it. So if the Happy Art Galleria down the street discovers they can sell paintings of Elvis done in macaroni on velvet for ten thousand dollars a pop, Mary would-"

"She'd blow them out of the water," Nannuzzi said. "Contrary to the belief of the art snobs you can usually pick them out by their black clothes and teeny-tiny cell phones we're not venal."

"Got it off your chest?" Wireman asked, not quite smiling.

"Almost," he said. "All I'm saying is that Mary understands our situation. We sell good stuff, most of us, and sometimes we sell great stuff. We do our best to find and develop new artists, but some of our customers are too rich for their own good. I'm thinking of fellows like Mr. Costenza out there, who was waving his checkbook around, and the ladies who come in with their dogs dyed to match their latest coats." Nannuzzi showed his teeth in a smile I was willing to bet not many of his richer clients ever saw.

I was fascinated. This was another world.

"Mary reviews every new show she can get to, which is most of them, and believe me, not all her reviews are raves."

"But most are?" Wireman said.

"Sure, because most of the shows are good. She'd tell you very little of the stuff she sees is great, because that isn't what tourist-track areas as a rule produce, but good? Yes. Stuff anyone can hang, then point to and say 'I bought that' without a quaver of embarrassment."

I thought Nannuzzi had just given a perfect definition of mediocrity I had seen the principle at work in hundreds of architectural drawings but again I kept silent.

"Mary shares our interest in new artists. There may come a time when it would be in your interest to sit down with her, Mr. Freemantle. Prior to a showing of your work, let us say."