Chapter 12: Violets for Your Furs    (print this)

And so it was that Henry found himself in a dark suit, riding the elevator to the House of Blues Foundation Room, an expensive, members-only club perched high above the Strip on the top floor of Mandalay Bay. Under his arm he carried a black velvet box, tied with a wide, gray and white marbled ribbon.

He exited into the Foundation Room's dimly lit corridor, the walls decorated in all manner of Eastern motifs, a dark labyrinth of exotica for the rich, the famous, the well-connected. He had been here many times before, usually for the after-event party of some fundraiser for the university, trying to lose himself in the various Buddha-infested nooks for a moment of quiet after being buttonholed by some bore who still thought "painting is dead" was a trenchant insight. For a moment, he could see Jill by the main bar's huge fireplace, charming some casino exec into doing more for the arts community, invariably squeezing very little cash out of them once they realized she wasn't going to sleep with them.

Straight ahead, one of the function room corridors were blocked by two large men in black blazers, the telltale wires dangling from their ears as if they were robots guarding some mad inventor's lab. Next to them, beneath a great elephant-headed statue of Ganesha, stood a sign:

HELLENIC LEAGUE 8pm—Midnight Please Check In

Henry handed one of his cards to the robot on the right. "Could you please give this to Ms. Stephanie No? She's expecting me. I'll be in the bar."

The robot squinted at the card, nodded, and walked down the corridor, disappearing into the reddish gloom.

A few minutes later, standing in the faux-candle glow of the huge main bar area with its tiny, private rooms off to the sides, Henry saw Maude S—, flanked by No and another woman, glide into the room. All three were in velvet, No and the other woman in tasteful evening gowns, Maude in long flowing dress with her full hood, cloak and long evening gloves. The few eyes in the room watched them move toward Henry with a respectful bemusement followed by whispers.

Henry surveyed them as they approached him, Maude with her hand extended. "Mr. Bethel," she said with a smile that lit up the darkness under her hood.

"One rarely sees the Weird Sisters from Macbeth at the top of Mandalay Bay," said Henry with a smile.

Maude laughed, Ms. No glowered, but the third woman looked as if Henry had just told her dog died. She looked a little wildly at Maude, who put her hand firmly on the woman's arm (who Henry now saw looked a little like Ms. No, only with a great deal of curly blonde hair).

"You'll have to excuse Mr. Bethel," said Maude, "he's only comfortable when he's making a joke."

"Touché," said Henry.

"Henry, this is my other assistant, Ms. Europa Yale. She is as invaluable to me in the studio as Stephanie is in the office."

Henry bowed toward the woman. "Not a descendant of the famous Yales?" he said, smiling.

"No," she replied simply. If Ms. No's voice was like ice, Ms. Yale's was as cold as the space between the stars. She looked at Henry and back at Maude with a slightly wild, questioning look.

"I only have a few minutes, as someone is presenting an award and my name will be mentioned and I will have to make my very brief appearance to very polite applause," said Maude.

"Of course," said Henry. "I won't take you away for long. I'm rather surprised to find you at a meeting of a rather secretive amateur archaeological society."

Maude smiled from under her hood. "Amateurs are very free with their money. I did a… commission for the League not long ago, and they were very grateful." Her face nodded toward the velvet box. "Is this my Trojan Horse?"

Henry laughed, then looked at her seriously. "If we may have a moment…?"

Maude nodded to her assistants, who left her side, reluctantly it seemed, and melted back into the darkness. Henry looked toward one of the private rooms, then back over at the large balcony behind the bar, which appeared to be empty. "Do you mind a little night air?"

"I prefer it," said Maude. He offered his arm, but she merely glided along at his side, out the door and into the desert air, where the moon fought a losing battle with the light from the top of the Luxor next door. Looking north, the hotel's name burned in 12-foot high gold letters, just one floor up from where they stood.

They sat across from each other, Maude pulling back her hood to reveal once again the tightly braided red hair, and her dark glasses perched on her lovely nose. Henry was struck by how luminous her skin looked in this light, glowing as if from inside.

"It is good of you to meet me like this," she said. "I hoped our next meeting wouldn't be so rushed, so…"

"Mysterious?" offered Henry.

"I would think you'd had enough mystery on our first meeting," said Maude. "Forgive my abruptness then, but there are certain areas of my private life I don't wish to discuss, with you or anyone." She smiled. "To be quite clear."

"Would that I could respect that wish," said Henry. "But more and more I find myself drawn into your life in ways that are both distressing and curious."

She frowned a little, and almost made a motion as if to stand, when Henry said, "Please. I have a few things to tell you, and something to give you, and I'm not going to ask you for anything but your ears." He gazed her, steadily, as she relaxed again. "What is it you wish to say?" she said quietly.

And so, Henry told her. All of it. About Madison Monroe's request that he be an agent for the enigmatic art collector Don Ix; about the strangeness attached to that request; about being followed; about the rumors and strained reactions swirling around her name; and finally about being kidnapped by Mangopoulos and his constant reference to her as "The Witch." When Henry reached this part of the narrative, he thought he say Maude shudder a little, and sink back into the chair, her face dejected.

At last Henry finished. The velvet box was on his knees. He paused, about to go on, when Maude spoke.

"I'm very sorry for this, Mr. Bethel," she said softly. "Very sorry that you should have been involved in anyway with my… difficulties… you of all people," she added, as if an afterthought. "You deserve an explanation, which… which I am unable to give you at this moment."

Henry held up his palm. "Maude. Listen. Hard as it may be to believe, at this moment, I don't want an explanation."

"But, Mr. Bethel…"

"No. Please. Stop right there," Henry continued. "I've been doing a great deal of thinking lately, something I used to do as a matter of course and somewhere along the way put aside. So far there are nothing but mysteries around me right now, but that's all right. So far I've been told from various quarters that I'm in danger from you, or that you are somehow dangerous to others. Which may be true. But all I've seen so far has been the fact that several rich and obviously powerful people are targeting an artist of obvious and immense talent as if she were something to be possessed or something to be… I don't know, destroyed, melodramatic as that sounds."

Henry placed the velvet box on the table between them, and took a breath. "I've spent most of my life, until two years ago, writing and talking about artists. Not to possess them, not to destroy them, but for no other reason than art has been my passion. I wanted to respond to that passion, and share the response with others. I've had as little truck with other critics, other writers, who want to possess and destroy as possible. And I will have no truck with rich assholes who want to possess and destroy, for whatever reasons, an artist's life or work."

Henry fell silent, searching Maude's face for a response. Behind her dark glasses she sat for a long moment, before saying "But you don't know what you're talking about, Henry." She paused again, and looked up at him. "I am dangerous." It was almost a whisper.

Henry smiled. "All right. So you're dangerous."

"I'm not being dramatic," she replied a harder tone. "People… people have come to bad ends through their association with me."

Henry shook his head. "I don't care. I've been running from this passion from mine for some time now. I replaced it with a different passion, but I can only say so much about the music of Sinatra, only live in that loneliness for so long. It's not what I do, what I was meant to do. Now I don't know if I'll ever do what I do again. I don't know if I'll ever pick up a pen because of a brushstroke that won't leave my brain. But I know this," and here Henry leaned forward, "that deep down in my self-pity I still believe in Art with a capital A, and I'll be damned if I'll stand by while a great artist is hounded by prying rich assholes and thugs with guns."

Maude looked at him, her mouth open as if a little astonished. "Henry, this is none of your affair. Please stay—"

"Open the box," he interrupted.

She looked at him. "Open it," he said again, "please."

There was rustle of velvet on velvet. A breeze picked up. The moon stood steadfast by a cloud.

Maude gasped as the lid came off. She looked up at Henry searchingly, then lifted the heavy, stone hand out of the box. "Where…?"

"Mangopoulos. He gave me that as some sort of warning. Clearly, it's one of your works, mutilated."

Maude gazed down. "Yes," she said. "Yes I suppose it is."

"The rest of the statue must be stunning," said Henry, staring at it as well. "The detail of this hand is beyond anything I've ever seen… the exquisite rendering of the rings, down to their diamonds and emeralds…"

"Yes," said Maude, her voice husky, quickly wrapping a perfectly realized image of a woman's hand in granite, and placing it back in the box.

Henry was quiet. She seemed to gaze at the box as if for many hours, but it was only a moment. "I… cannot express my gratitude to you for giving this to me. For telling me everything that has transpired. But you should…"

Henry suddenly stood up. "No. No warnings from you. If I'm in danger, so be it, rather from you (which I sincerely doubt) or from the people pursuing you, I don't care. Besides, this is Vegas, my dear." Henry smiled. "I will take the risk."

Maude looked up at him, as if to say something else, than smiled at last and said, "There are many who've been broken by that statement."

"I'm already broken," said Henry softly. "Allow me the privilege of feeling somewhat whole again."

And with that, Henry quickly bowed, making his pre-planned dramatic exit, through the shadows cast by the fireplace, past the quizzical expressions of Ms. No and Ms. Yale, past the robots, and into the elevator. When the doors closed, he let out a great heaving sigh, and gasped for breath, feeling his forehead. He felt relaxed, relieved—yet a little frightened. Whatever else, he thought, you're in it now. He swallowed, suddenly thirsty, his eye twitching, and leaned his head back against the elevator wall, as he rapidly descended, down, down, down.