Chapter 2: I Can't Get Started with You    (print this)

FROM THE POUNDING at his front door, Henry Bethel would have thought a very hefty repo man or hulking homicidal maniac (it was a toss-up which one he would be happier to see) was on the other side. “Hang on,” he half-shouted, fumbling into his old black robe and trying to shake off Jack’s visitation.

When he threw open the door, however, he was shocked to see a small, rather birdlike man, impeccably dressed in a dark gray suit. He was pale, almost translucent, with close-cropped fire red hair and elegant oval glasses alight on his sharp Roman nose. He was so thin he looked to Henry like a human matchstick. The incongruity between this and the thunderous knocking brought Henry up short.

“Uh, yes?” said Henry.

“Mr. Henry Bethel? I hope I didn’t rouse you from too deep a slumber.” The man’s voice was crisp and faintly acid, somewhere just this side of Basil Rathbone. “My name is Madison Monroe, and I have come to see you on urgent matter. May I come in?”

Henry half began to close the door with whatever protestations he used these days to get rid of people. But he stopped, vaguely intrigued by this odd creature. “I suppose I have a few minutes,” he said, opening the door and ushering the man inside.

Madison Monroe glided into the house. Henry had never actually seen anyone, not even runway models, actually “glide,” but this man did. He was like a wisp from a burning candle, and Henry looked past him to see if there was some burly brute lurking around the corner before closing the door.

If Madison Monroe was nonplussed by the décor of Henry’s front room, he did not betray it. There was a knockoff Eames chair in one corner, next to a freestanding lamp. Otherwise the hardwood floors were bare; the fireplace yawned blackly in the white wall. At the far end of the room, however, there as a giant photograph covering the entire north wall: a reproduction of the cover of Frank Sinatra’s album No One Cares (arranged and conducted by Gordon Jenkins). Sinatra, wearing trademark hat and a trenchcoat, sat at a bar and stared disconsolately into his glass as happy, blissfully unaware barflies chatted in the background. Monroe seemed to take all this in with a glance, and, unasked, moved directly to the chair and lowered himself into it with single, fluid motion.

“Drink?” Henry asked, rubbing his chin and already answering in the affirmative for himself.

“Thank you, no,” replied Monroe as Henry went into the kitchen. “You are a very difficult man to reach, Mr. Bethel.”

Henry poured himself a rum and coke. “Incommunicado, Mr. Monroe. It’s a pleasant place to be.” He walked back into the room to see Monroe arranging a slim leather portfolio across his knees. Monroe’s expression seemed one of earnest bemusement.

“It is unfortunate that an art critic of your standing should absent himself from the fray. May I say that I greatly admired your book of essays, Fiesta Machinery?”

“You can say it,” said Henry, stifling a yawn. “People say all sorts of things. What can I do for you, Mr. Monroe? I fear I’ve retired from the art world and gone into another line of work entirely, so if you’re a curator…”

Monroe’s short bark of a laugh stopped Henry’s thought. “No, no, Mr. Bethel, I’m not a curator. And I am aware of your recent career realignment. Sinatraist, isn’t it? My sister-in-law is herself an Yma Sumactrix. Very lucrative, especially here in Las Vegas, I’m sure.”

“It keeps me in contented silence, Mr. Monroe. Incommunicado.” Henry hoped his tone would be apparent, and that this strange little man, who he was already regretting letting in, bizarre knock or no, would get to his point and go.

“Yes. Silence is something to be desired in this brave new world of tomorrow, isn’t it, Mr. Bethel?” Monroe unsnapped his portfolio. “Let me go straight to the point, then. I represent the collector Don Ix Ixmal. You are familiar with his excellency?”

Bethel was vaguely familiar. “Um, yes. Specializes in Mayan art, doesn’t he? Some sort of big wheel in the Mexican government…”

Monroe smiled. “A former ambassador. Don Ix has worn many hats in his long life of philanthropy and public service, Mr. Bethel. And his taste ranges far and wide, from ancient to contemporary.” Monroe removed a long gray card from the portfolio. “And Don Ix is at present most interested in the work of this artist.”

Henry took the card from Monroe’s proffered hand. It was slate gray, the color of cold, dark stone. It read, in raised lettering:

SACRED MONSTERS An Exhibition of New Sculpture by Maude S— February 28-April 27 The Elise Valkenburg Gallery 1225 Industrial Road

“It’s nice to see Elise is still in business,” remarked Henry. “The market for art in Las Vegas, you may know, is rather limited to fourth-rate Venetian glass and paintings of dolphins." Who, he wondered to himself, was Maude S—?

“Maude S— is a recent and mysterious addition to the local art scene, Mr. Bethel,” said Monroe, as if reading his mind. “Don Ix has received very, shall we say, intriguing reports about her work. But these reports have been of a rather clandestine nature, for they refer to sculptures that almost no one has seen. In fact, they’ve likely been seen by the same handful of people who have actually seen the artists herself.”

“What do you mean?”

Monroe shifted slightly in the chair. “Maude S— came, as the cliché goes, literally out of nowhere. Her sculptures—the ones she shows in public—have appeared in odd places outside the international art circuit. But the works are so striking that they have slowly filtered into the art world, bit by bit, by mere word of mouth. Perhaps you saw the photographs of her works in Art in America three months ago?”

“I let my subscription lapse.” Henry didn’t bother to conceal his yawn. This was all so pleasantly distant now. Why did he not tell the Matchstick to go away?

“They’ve created quite a buzz, nonetheless,” said Monroe somewhat archly. “But the real buzz is the Garbo-like behavior of Maude S— herself. She is a recluse, dealing only with galleries through representatives, and spurning any kind of exclusive deal. She roams from one odd city to another, showing her works, selling several, than moving on as suddenly as she arrived. But most enigmatically she refuses to show any of her private works, the tales of which have started a furious rustling among collectors and other artists.”

Henry regarded Monroe over the top of his glass. “And now she’s come to our radiant city, has she.”

“Indeed. And Don Ix is anxious to make an assessment of her works before she disappears again. That, Mr. Bethel, is where you come in. Don Ix wishes to contract your services as a critic and advise him as to the quality and importance of this artist’s work.”

Henry sighed. “You’ve wasted your time, Mr. Monroe. As I stated before, I’m out of the whole dirty and dispiriting art game. Certainly a man as wealthy as Don Ix can hop on a lear jet to Vegas and see the works for himself.”

Monroe smiled. “Alas, Don Ix has duties elsewhere of the utmost urgency that prevent him from making a personal assessment.”

Henry waved his hand. “Then he can fly in somebody from L.A. or New York. I’m sad to say there are plenty of overpaid and underintelligent art consultants around.”

“Don Ix wants someone who is, shall we say, local. And you are the only art critic of any stature in the whole state of Nevada, I would wager.”

“I’m retired,” said Henry forcefully. “And what does being local have to do with this?”

At this, Madison Monroe’s smile paled somewhat, and he stood up with the same light grace as before. “The assessment of Maude S— that Don Ix most desires is not of her work at the Elise Valkenburg Gallery, Mr. Bethel.”

Monroe walked closer, as if for dramatic effect, and small as he was, achieved it. “Don Ix wants an assessment of the private works. The ones that no one has seen. We feel someone with experience in the city can get closer to the artist than is possible for some hired gun, as it were.”

Henry paused, than laughed, snorting, and shook his head. “I’m not interested, Mr. Monroe. Tell your boss he should talk to the people who’ve already seen these works.”

Monroe’s smile returned like a flickering lightbulb, oddly twitchy and bright. “Unfortunately, Mr. Bethel, those who have seen these works have proved to be very difficult to contact. Many seem to have vanished off the face of the earth.”

What is this, Henry thought to himself, Pickman’s Model meets the X-Files? “I’m very sorry, Mr. Monroe,” he said

“It it’s a question of your fee, Mr. Beth-"

Henry cut him off. “It has nothing to do with money. Nothing these days has anything to do with money, except for the Chairman of the Board. I am not an art critic, cultural commentator, talking head, pundit or writer of any kind for any price,” he said, handing him back the invitation.

Monroe deftly moved around him toward the door. “Keep it, Mr. Bethel. I will convey your refusal to Don Ix, who will naturally be deeply disappointed. But perhaps you will reconsider.”

“I’m afraid I won’t, Mr. Monroe.” He continued to hold out the card, a little unnerved by Monroe’s swiftness. Monroe already had the door open.

“Well, we’ll see, Mr. Bethel. It is my job, on occasion, to be an optimist.” He smiled once again. “It was a pleasure to meet you. Good day.” And with that he was gone with a soft click as the door closed behind him.

Henry stood there a moment, stupidly holding his breath. At last he let it go with a low whistle, and drained the rest of his drink. He wasn’t sure if he was more annoyed by the man’s disdainful, I-work-for-someone-important manner or by the whole bizarre scenario he had proposed. Was he considered a potential spy precisely because he had left the scene? And what would Don Ix do with the information once he had it? Obviously, the works are private because they’re not for sale. No doubt Don Ix was some obsessive rich weirdo who felt he could wave enough money around and have whatever he wanted.

“Feh,” said Henry aloud. He realized he was still holding the card for the show. He walked into the kitchen and, with great satisfaction, stepped on the pedal to the trash can and flung it into the depths.

It took a second to register what he had seen. He opened the lid again, and peered at it for a long moment before reaching down and retrieving it. He had neglected to turn the card over during his interview with Monroe. He now looked closely at it, and felt a horrible coldness in his gut, felt it spread up into his heart with all its sorrows and lodge there, heavy as a ton of ice. For he knew immediately that he would see the works of Maude S— in spite of himself.

There, on the other side of the card, was a photo of a sculpture. It was a recreation of a figure from the Tarot. It was, in fact, as the Roman letters carved into it’s base proclaimed, the Hierophant.

And it was the spitting image of Francis Albert Sinatra.