The Museum of Desire: An Alex Delaware Novel(73)

“Why not go straight to the airport?”

“Money. She was gonna pay him for the two paintings he sold, said she needed to get a business check. He shows up, the place is dark, he hangs around, walks to the back, finds her car there and knocks on the back door, nada. He tries to call her, no connection, returns to the front, waits some more, gets antsy, tries the back again. At that point Binchy, who’s been observing all this, follows him, ready for a confrontation. Instead, he finds a scared drunk guy who asks for help.”

“What’s so scary about a no-show?”

“Maybe it’s the booze talking or whatever personality issues he’s got. But what he claims is Okash is big on punctuality, it just didn’t feel right.” He eyed the mirror. “You wanna watch him go ’round in circles a few more times?”

“No, enough entertainment.”



* * *



—

The moment we cracked the door, Dugong stopped, stared, and tottered toward a table in the center of the room.

I shook his hand.

“Yeah, I saw you the first time.” Sharp gust of grain alcohol. He burped. “Sorry, I fill the tank before I fly. Scares the shit out of me, I like boats.” Slurred voice, red eyes, cracked lips. In a few years he could hang with the likes of Mary Jane Huralnik.

We sat down across from him.

Milo said, “So you were saying Medina’s never late.”

“I mean, she didn’t used to be.”

I said, “Back when you were kids.”

“Yuh.”

“You guys grew up together?”

“No, no, my dad—our dad—he moved around.” Head shake. “He was a dog and a total asshole. Our mothers hated each other.” A beat. “So we also did.”

I said, “Fighting your mothers’ battles.”

Dugong chewed his lip. His eyes narrowed in concentration; weighing a novel concept. “Guess so.”

“So when did you and Medina start talking again?”

“Last year. I…okay, I’ll be straight, I had a meth problem, got out of rehab but couldn’t find a job on a boat, you know? So I started painting again. I always done it. Drawing, painting, doing collage, anything art. In rehab they said I was good. So I went to Art Basel, it’s this big winter thing in Miami.”

I said, “Showing your stuff there is huge, Geoff.”

Dugong looked at the table. “I wasn’t showing, I got hired to move stuff around.”

“Like a grip?”

“What’s that?”

“Guys who move stuff on movie sets.”

“Yeah, like that. It was shit work for thirteen an hour with faggots ordering you around. But I figured get close to the art, see what’s selling. That’s when Medina saw me. I’m pushing a hand truck, she’s with these rich assholes, dressed in white like a cruise ship, speaking European. We knew each other right away, had saw each other ten years before. His funeral. I wouldn’ta said anything but she did this.”

He held up a wait-a-second finger.

I said, “Wanting you to stick around.”

“Yeah. She finished with the Europeans, it was almost my break so we had coffee. I was like, what do you want, we never got along. But turned out to be a good deal, she’s mellow, we talk, she finds out I paint, she just got her own gallery in L.A., if I come up with something she can use, she’ll look at it. So I walked out on that shit job, got back to the Keys, and went crazy painting. Did a couple of water scenes and sent her a photo and she said great but she needed something more conceptual. I’m like what? She’s like an idea—a concept. Then she tells me about the candles, I say sure, that’s easier than water. I do a candle, send her a photo, she says great, now we’re in business, do a bunch more. She pays to have everything sent here, pays to fly me out. Round-trip.”

“She handled everything.”

“She’s good at that. Organized, you know? So when she’s not there, it feels wrong. ’Cause yeah, she is big on time. Doing things organized. Then your redhead dude shows up—what was he doing there, anyway? Cool guy, though. For one a your—he was okay to me.”

I said, “What’s behind the back door?”

“Huh?”

“The door that leads to the parking lot.”

“The back room.”

“We saw a small storage room but there’s something behind that.”

“Another back room, empty,” said Dugong.

Milo said, “So you got worried.”

“Fuck, yeah, you think?” Sharp glints livened Dugong’s eyes, jagged, like fissures in overheated glass. The spade of beard quivered, large, inked hands rolled naturally into fists. His knuckles were glossy, heaped with keloid scarring.

Souvenirs of the red zone. Which was where he was edging now, without warning.

Milo sat taller and stared him down.

Dugong forced his hands open, rubbed the side of his neck, tried, without success, to smile. “Sorry, sometimes I get inpatient.”

“No prob, Geoff. You’re under stress.”

“Zactly. Makes no sense, like at the show, she gave me shit for being ten minutes late and it wasn’t even my fault, driver was some Armenian asshole, got messed up by one-way streets. Ten minutes and she reams me. Like really reams me. It put me in a shit mood. That’s why you saw me being in a shit mood.”