Dead Sleep

14

“Come on!” Baxter shouts from the open door of the surveillance van. “Get in!”

Kaiser and Lenz are lost in thoughts of Thalia Laveau and her nudes, but something in Baxter’s voice brings them out of it. We scrunch into the cramped van and squat in the heat, our faces inches apart.

“Ten minutes ago,” says Baxter, “a finance company repossessed Leon Gaines’s van.”

“Damn it,” snaps Kaiser. “Murphy’s Law.”

“The repo guy had apparently tried to get it before, and Gaines ran him off. Today he just walked up to the house, popped the lock, and drove off before the NOPD surveillance team could do anything.”

“Where’s the van now?”

“Jefferson Parish deputies stopped it on Veterans Highway. They’re going to take it to their impound lot and seal it for our evidence team.”

“Does Gaines know the van is gone?” Lenz asks.

“Oh, yeah. He’s fighting with his girlfriend right now. They can hear him yelling out in the street, and parabolics have picked up the sound of slaps and blows.”

Lenz shakes his head. “Do we know if he has a gun in there?”

“This is Louisiana,” says Kaiser. “Assume he does. What do we know about the girlfriend?”

“Name’s Linda Knapp,” Baxter replies. “She’s twenty-nine, a barmaid. He’s been with her on and off for a little over a year. So. Do we talk to him now or do we wait?”

“Now,” says Kaiser. “While he’s pissed. Go in hard, settle him down, then bring Jordan in.”

Baxter turns to me, and when he speaks I smell coffee on his breath. “This isn’t like talking to Roger Wheaton. Gaines is a violent felon.”

“I signed your release this morning. Kaiser’s armed, and there’ll be cops outside. I’m ready.”

Baxter hesitates a moment longer, then slaps the panel separating us from the van’s driver. The motor roars, and we lurch backward, then forward. As we roll off of the campus, Kaiser catches my eye and gives me a nod of gratitude.

Leon Gaines lives in a shotgun house on Freret Street, beyond the terminus of St. Charles and Carrollton, very near the river. It’s a mostly black neighborhood behind an old shopping center, where people mind their own business and a prison record carries no stigma. Old people sit on screened porches, some drinking from paper bags, others rocking slowly and watching the cars go past. Kids too young for school play in tiny yards or the street, and knots of school-age kids stand on the corners. Our driver circles the block once for us to get a look, then stops a couple of driveways up from Gaines’s place.

Baxter opens the door. “Remember what’s at stake, John. This is our only clean shot at him.”

Kaiser nods, then gets out and starts up the cracked sidewalk, Dr. Lenz working hard to keep pace with him. After a few seconds, Kaiser’s voice comes from the speakers.

“Don’t react to anything I do. Act like you expect it, even if you’re shocked.”

“What are you going to do?” Lenz asks.

“Whatever feels right. And don’t let me forget to ask if he knows Marcel de Becque. We forgot to ask Wheaton.”

“You’re right,” huffs Lenz.

Beside me, Baxter says, “You missed most of the meeting this morning. We confirmed that there was bad blood between de Becque and Christopher Wingate. Most of the art community knew about it. When Wingate sold those paintings he’d promised de Becque, de Becque retaliated by spiking some big investment deal Wingate was involved in. We don’t have the details yet.”

“I can hear Gaines yelling from here,” says Lenz, sounding nervous.

“Here we go,” says Kaiser.

Their shoes bang on plank steps; then a screen door slaps against its frame and a hard knocking echoes through the van.

“Leon Gaines!” shouts Kaiser. “Open up! FBI!”

There’s a pause, then a muffled shout of challenge.

Baxter says, “This is going to be tricky.”

The unmistakable sound of a door being jerked open comes from the speakers. Then a New York accent laced with alcohol booms, “Who the fuck are you? Pencil-dicks from the finance company? If you are, I got something for you.”

“I’m Special Agent John Kaiser, FBI. And I’ve got something for you, Leon. A search warrant. Step back from the door.”

“FBI?” A puzzled silence. “Search warrant? For what?”

“Step back from the door, Leon.”

“What is this, man? This is my house.”

A faint female voice says something unintelligible.

“Get back in the bedroom!” Gaines yells.

“I told you twice to clear the door,” says Kaiser. “Do it now or I move you out.”

“Hey, no problem. But I need to see that warrant first.”

A scuffling noise is drowned by a grunt of shock by Lenz, and vocal complaint by Gaines.

“What did Kaiser do?” I ask, gripping a metal rack rail.

“Moved him out of the door,” says Baxter. “Like he said he would. With a con, you have to establish dominance quickly.”

“We’ve got two choices here, Leon,” Kaiser says in a voice I hardly recognize. “We can talk to you, or we can search this dump. Right now I want to talk. If I like what I hear, we might not have to search. If I don’t like what I hear, we’ll have to search, and we might conceivably stumble across some drugs. Or a gun. Either beef would put you right into Angola-”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Art.”

“Art who?”

“Art, Leon. Your paintings.”

“Oh.”

“Eleven women have disappeared from New Orleans over the past year and a half. You know about that?”

“Yeah. So?”

“What do you know about it?”

“What I see on TV.”

“We found a series of paintings that show these missing women. In the paintings, the women are nude and posed like they’re asleep or dead. Eyes closed, skin pale, like that.”

“So?”

“The last sold for over a million bucks.”

“Do I look like I just made a million bucks to you?”

“Your paintings reveal a predilection for violence,” says Lenz.

“Who the hell are you?”

“This is Doctor Lenz, Leon,” says Kaiser. “You speak to him with respect, or you’ll be funding the Vaseline concession at Angola. That’s the only real self-help program that means anything there.”

Gaines says nothing.

“The artist painting these pictures doesn’t sign his work. But we’ve found some rare sable brush hairs in the paint on some of them. Sound familiar?”

There’s a pause as Gaines works it out. “It’s those expensive brushes Wheaton got us. Right?”

“Right.”

“You tracked brush hairs from Hong Kong to Tulane?”

“That’s what we do, Leon. We can track pubic hairs from an Algiers whorehouse to your ass if we need to. I want some answers. You waste five seconds of my time, you’re on your way up Highway Sixty-one.”

Gaines says nothing.

“Where were you three nights ago, after the opening at the museum?”

“Right here.”

“Can anybody verify that?”

“Linda!” Gaines yells, clipping the mike Lenz is wearing.

There’s a pause; then Kaiser says, “Ms. Knapp?”

“Who’s asking?” says a scratchy female voice.

“I’m with the FBI. Could you tell us-”

“Tell these guys we were here after the NOMA thing,” Gaines cuts in. “They don’t believe me.”

“Shit,” mutters Baxter.

“That’s right,” the woman says. “We came straight home. I was bored. Everybody thinks they’re hot shit at those art things. We were here all night.”

“Can anyone else confirm that?” asks Kaiser.

“No,” says Gaines. “We were having some quality time, you know?”

“Right,” Kaiser says wearily.

“That’s all,” Gaines says, dismissing his girlfriend as he would a waitress.

“She your steady alibi, Leon?” asks Kaiser.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tell me about Roger Wheaton.”

“What about him?”

“Why did you want into his program?”

“Roger’s the man.”

“What do you mean?”

“He does his thing and doesn’t give two shits what anybody thinks about it. And because he’s done that his whole life, he’s now a rich and famous man.”

“You want to be rich and famous too, Leon?”

“Whatever.”

“Do you like Wheaton?”

“What’s to like or not like? The guy paints, that’s it.”

“Do you respect him?”

“The guy’s dying, but he keeps working and he doesn’t bitch. I respect that. You see the piece he’s doing now? The room thing?”

“Yes.”

“It’s tearing him up, doing that. He’s got all kinds of joint problems. His tendons or something.”

“Enthesopathies,” Lenz says.

“Whatever. He has to climb that ladder and sit there for hours, holding his neck in one position. It’s worse than the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo had scaffolding, so he could lay on his back, you know? And Wheaton’s hands… Sometimes his fingers turn blue, man. Blue. First white, then blue, sometimes even kind of black. There’s no blood going to them, and he can’t paint or anything else. It’s agony. But he just sits down and waits until it stops, then goes right back to work.”

“You clearly respect him,” says Lenz. “And I suspect you don’t give respect easily.”

“You got that right. I think Roger saw a lot of shit in the war. He’s got wisdom, and he knows how to pass it on. By example.”

“What about Frank Smith?” asks Lenz.

Gaines makes a spitting sound.

“You don’t like Smith?”

“Frankie’s a silver-spoon butt pirate from Westchester. He walks like he has a dildo stuck up his butt, and he preaches every time he opens his mouth.”

“What about his paintings?”

Gaines laughs in derision. “The nude fag series? Very tasty. You seen any of them? He cops the old masters so the stuff looks less like porn, then pawns it off on ignorant queens from New York. It’s a sweet scam, I’ll give him that. I’d try it myself, but I have this aversion to anal penetration. You know? But hey, maybe that’s just me.”

“What about Thalia Laveau?” asks Lenz.

Another pause, as though Gaines is debating whether to answer. “She’s a tasty piece, if you like dark meat. Which, on occasion, I do. She doesn’t look black, but she’s got the blood, all right. Darker the berry, sweeter the juice, right?”

“What about her paintings?” asks Kaiser.

“She paints the poor and downtrodden. Who wants to buy that? A few guilty liberals from New England. She ought to go back to stripping.”

“She told you she stripped for money?” asks Lenz.

“A Newcomb art history chick told me. She and Thalia munch carpets together on occasion. Don’t tell me you guys didn’t know.”

“Do you know a man named Marcel de Becque?” asks Lenz.

“Never heard of him.”

“We’re going to want to take some pictures,” Kaiser says in a detached voice. “Our photographer was supposed to be here already, but I’m sure we can find something to talk about in the meantime.”

Baxter slaps my knee. “Go. And if it gets rough, hit the floor.”

He opens the door, and I’m on the concrete, moving up the line of shotgun houses to the sound of R. Kelly coming from a boom box. I nod to the porch-sitters who’ll assume from my clothes and the camera around my neck that I’m what I used to be, a newspaper photographer sent down here for pictures of a corpse or drug activity.

The green paint is peeling from the walls of Gaines’s house, and the screen on the door is a rusted patchwork of orange and black. I feel a moment’s trepidation as I reach for the handle, but the knowledge that Kaiser has a gun settles me enough to knock and go through the door.

The first thing that hits me is the smell. The scents of paint and oil that made Wheaton’s studio so pleasant are here smothered by the stink of mildew, stale beer, rotting food, tobacco, and marijuana. Kaiser, Lenz, and Gaines practically fill the front room, which is long and narrow and throws me back to the countless shotgun houses I visited when I worked for the Times-Picayune.

“Who’s this?” asks Gaines.

There’s a strange caesura as Kaiser and Lenz judge his reaction to me. I force myself not to look at him by busying myself with my camera. Past the camera I see a brown sofa pitted with cigarette burns and a threadbare carpet stained with drops of oil paint. The walls are bare but for an airbrushed Elvis on one wall and a small but elegant abstract over the sofa. A large easel stands the corner nearest me, a dirty cloth thrown over it.

“She’s our photographer,” says Kaiser. He points at the easel. “Is that painting yours?”

“Yeah,” Gaines replies, and from the sound of his voice I can tell he’s still looking at me.

I give him my face, searching his eyes for signs of recognition. They’re dark coals set in yellow sclera, and they look permanently wide, like a hyperthyroid patient’s, the effect exaggerated by dark half-moons beneath them. A limp black perm hangs over his forehead, and three days’ growth of beard stubbles his face. In person, his skin has the sickly white pallor of a snake’s belly. It’s not hard to imagine him rolling a lawn mower over a live cat.

“Take the sheet off the painting so she can shoot it,” Kaiser orders.

“Maybe I don’t want it shot till it’s finished.”

“Maybe somebody somewhere gives a shit what you want.” Kaiser walks over to the easel and yanks off the sheet.

Because I expected so little, Gaines’s painting is startlingly powerful. A lank-haired blond woman with a hard face sits at a kitchen table in the harsh light of a bare bulb. She’s surrounded by dirty cereal bowls and fast-food bags, and her shirt is open to the waist, revealing small sagging breasts. Her hollow eyes look out from the canvas with the sullen resignation of an animal that has helped build its own cage. It’s hard to imagine such truthful art coming from the creature standing across the room, but talent isn’t handed out on a merit system.

I set the flash on the Mamiya and start shooting, doing my best to ignore Gaines, whose eyes I feel like greasy fingers on my skin. After ten shots, I turn to the small abstract on the other wall. It’s different from Gaines’s work, but it looks like an original. Some female art student probably gave it to him after he slept with her.

“Who painted that?” I ask, shooting a snap of the small canvas.

“Roger,” Gaines replies.

“Roger Wheaton?” asks Lenz.

“Yeah.” Gaines moves closer to me. “I can tell you like my picture. You ought to come back later and let me paint you.”

I would laugh were the situation not so grave.

“Shut up, you cheating bastard!”

I whirl to find the blond woman from the painting charging into the room. Wild eyes flash in her pale face, and a livid red mark the size of a fist covers one cheek from eye to mouth, the center of it already turning dark.

“Get back in there!” Gaines yells, his right hand balled into a fist.

Kaiser interposes himself between Gaines and the girl, who’s wearing only a thin nightgown. “Has this man assaulted you, miss?”

“He fucked me over, is what he done! He’s a goddamn liar! He said I was gonna be a model!”

“Have you modeled for him without clothes?”

“Hell, yes! He hardly lets me put anything on. But he don’t want to paint, he just wants to fuck. That and get stoned, all day every day. And once he gets stoned, he can’t even do that!”

“Get out, goddamn it!” Gaines screams, raising his fist.

The girl looks at me with a defiant rage. “Don’t let them crazy eyes get you, honey, he’s a loser.”

“Like you’d know?” Gaines yells. “This lady’s got class.”

The woman laughs. “Yeah? That means she don’t lay down with trash like you.”

Gaines lunges at her, but Kaiser does something with his foot and suddenly Gaines is on the floor, clutching his knee with both hands. The girl laughs hysterically and points at Gaines.

“I think you’d better come with us,” Kaiser tells her.

“I got nowhere to go he can’t find me.”

“We can arrange a shelter. A protected place.”

“For real?”

“You try it, slut,” Gaines groans.

Kaiser looks over at Lenz. “You have any questions?”

The psychiatrist shakes his head.

“Maybe I will go with you,” the girl says to Kaiser.

When he nods, she runs into the back of the house, and after a crash and some scuffling sounds, returns with a purse and a grocery bag filled with clothes.

“You can forget what I said before,” she says. “I don’t know where he was three nights ago. He was supposed to come back after the NOMA opening, but he never did.”

Gaines stares up from the floor with murder in his eyes.

“Well, Leon,” says Kaiser. “I think you’ve got a problem. The NOPD will be in touch.”

“Just a second,” says the girl. She reaches down beside the sofa and comes up with half a glass of what looks like flat beer. She gives Gaines a vicious look, then splats the beer against the painting on the easel. “You got all you’re gettin‘ out of me, scumbag.”

Gaines roars in fury, and she darts through the front door. Lenz follows her, and I’m close on his heels, surprised by how badly I want out of this self-created hell.

“Hey, picture lady,” Gaines calls after me. “You know where to find me when you get an itch.”

I turn back in time to see Kaiser crouch beside Gaines, blocking my line of sight. At first I think he’s whispering something, but then Gaines screams like a woman, and the girl starts laughing on the porch. Lenz sticks his head back through the door and stares transfixed as Kaiser stands, face placid, and walks toward us.

“What the hell was that?” Lenz asks.

“I don’t have the patience I used to,” Kaiser mutters.

Once on the sidewalk, Kaiser signals to someone I can’t see. A man in plainclothes and a shoulder holster jogs up the street, confers with Kaiser, then leads Gaines’s girlfriend away. The three of us gather by the opened rear door of the van, and Baxter looks expectantly at his two emissaries.

“What do you think?”

“It’s not Gaines,” says Lenz.

Baxter looks at Kaiser. “John?”

“I don’t know.”

Lenz snorts. “We’ve already wasted too much time. Let’s go see Frank Smith.”

“He sure reacted to me,” I say softly.

“Like a hound to a bitch,” says Lenz. “That’s all that was. You didn’t spook him a bit. He’d never seen you before.”

Baxter is watching me. “What did you think about him?”

“I know he seems too obvious. But there was something in him that scared me. Like all that attitude was covering up something else, something that repelled me on a whole other level. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” says Kaiser. “I felt it too.”

“The quality of his painting surprised me. He really sees into the women he paints.”

Baxter says, “He had a painting by Roger Wheaton on his wall?”

“He did,” Kaiser replies. “I’m surprised he hasn’t sold it for dope already.”

“We’d better check with Wheaton to make sure he didn’t steal it,” adds Lenz.

“Drop all that,” says Baxter. “NOPD’s ready to go in now and tear the place apart. Is that what we want?”

“They’re bound to find drugs or weapons,” says Kaiser. “We could put him in Angola and see if the kidnappings stop.”

“Do you really expect more kidnappings?” I ask. “Now that we’re this close?”

“We don’t know how close we are,” says Lenz. “Our interest might cause a more conventional serial offender to slow down, but whoever’s behind this has no reason to. For all we know, the painter is a replaceable element in the equation. If they want another woman, they’ll take one. They might even do it just to show they can.”

No one questions Lenz’s use of the plural pronoun.

“Don’t arrest Gaines,” Kaiser says. “If he’s involved, we’ll learn more by trailing him than jailing him.”

Baxter looks at Lenz, who nods.

Baxter presses a button on the console and speaks into his headset mike. “Ed? Roust Gaines, but if you can keep from arresting him, we’d like you to leave him in place… Same search, everything, just leave him home… Thanks. I’ll see you at the four o’clock meeting.”

Baxter takes off the headset and looks at me. “Ready for Frank Smith?”

“He’s got to be an improvement over Gaines.”

“Cleaner, anyway,” says Kaiser.

Baxter knocks on the front panel, and the van screeches onto Freret Street, headed for the more agreeable ambience of the French Quarter.