Dead Sleep

15

“Roger Wheaton called Smith and warned him we’re coming,” Baxter says, pulling off his headset. “Wiretap just picked it up.”

We’re parked across the street from a beautiful Creole cottage on the downriver side of Esplanade, the eastern border of the French Quarter. For the past two years it’s been the home of Frank Smith.

“Why wouldn’t Wheaton warn him?” asks Kaiser.

“We asked him not to,” says Lenz.

“And now they’re tearing his house apart and informing him he’s going to have to supply skin and blood for DNA testing to compare to the skin we took from under the Dorignac’s victim’s fingernails.”

“The call actually makes Wheaton look less suspicious,” Kaiser says. “He’s not stupid. He knows he’s a suspect, which probably means a wiretap, but he made the warning call anyway. That’s what somebody does when they’re innocent and pissed off.”

“Unless they do it to look innocent,” says Lenz.

“Why didn’t he warn Gaines?” I ask.

“Maybe he doesn’t like Gaines,” Kaiser says with a laugh. “That’s not hard to imagine.”

“Did he warn Thalia Laveau?” asks Lenz.

“Not yet,” Baxter replies. “Only Smith.”

“I’m very fond of Frank,”‘ says Kaiser. “Those were Wheaton’s words in the interview.”

“I wonder if there could be a homosexual link,” Lenz says.

“Wheaton has never married,” says Baxter. “Why didn’t you ask him if he’s gay? He’s never married.”

“He may be in the closet,” says Lenz. “I didn’t want to burn my bridges with him entirely. We can find that out elsewhere.”

Kaiser moves to the rear door. “Frank Smith is openly gay. Maybe he’ll tell us.” He looks at me. “See you in a few minutes.”

He and Lenz leave the van and slam the door.

Baxter presses his face to the van’s tinted porthole window. “The house doesn’t look as fancy as I pictured it.”

“You’re looking at the back,” I tell him. “Most of these houses face inward. Some onto courtyards, others onto fantastic gardens of tropical plants.”

“John told me about your natural light theory. This house does have a courtyard. Smith’s the only suspect who has one. Wheaton has an outdoor garden, but no walls. Hey, look at this.”

I put my cheek to his, and my eyes to the darkened porthole.

Frank Smith stands waiting for Kaiser and Lenz on his porch. He’s sleek and handsome, his dark tan set off by white tropical clothing, linen or silk. He has large vivid eyes and an ironic smile on his lips.

“Look at this guy,” says Kaiser over the monitor speaker. “A smart-ass, I can tell already.”

“I’ll be primary,” Lenz says.

Through the speakers, Frank Smith’s voice has the festive tone of a man greeting party guests. “Hello! Are you the gentlemen from the FBI? When do the storm troopers arrive?”

“Jesus,” mutters Kaiser. “There aren’t any storm troopers, Mr. Smith. Because of certain evidence, you’ve become a suspect in some very serious crimes. There’s no way to sugarcoat that. We’re here to ask you some questions.”

“You’re not here for a blood sample? Urine perhaps?”

“No. We’re here to talk.”

“Well, I don’t have an alibi for the night the woman was taken from Dorignac’s. I was here, alone, listening to music.” Through the window, I see Smith hold out his hands as if for handcuffs. “Let’s get it over with.”

“We’re just here to talk,” Kaiser insists.

“Foreplay for the police?” Smith asks in a taunting voice.

“We don’t control the police in this town.”

“I thought after all the corruption scandals here, you did.”

Beside me, Baxter says, “He’s pretty well-informed for a recent transplant.”

Not many years ago, police corruption and the city’s homicide rate were at an all-time high. Two police officers actually committed murder in the execution of a robbery, and the chaos that followed almost resulted in the Justice Department federalizing the New Orleans police force.

“We can talk here, in a civil manner,” says Kaiser, “or the police can haul you downtown.”

Smith laughs. “My God, it’s Humphrey Bogart in elevator shoes. Why don’t we go into the salon? I’ll have coffee brought in.”

Footsteps and a closing door echo in the van, then more footsteps.

“Please, sit,” Smith says.

There’s a groan of springs compressing under Dr. Lenz’s weight.

“Juan? Three coffees, please.”

“Si.”

“The guy has a servant,” says Baxter. “Shit. My student days were a little different.”

“Mr. Smith,” Lenz begins, “I’m Arthur Lenz, a forensic psychiatrist. This is Special Agent John Kaiser. He’s a psychological profiler for the Bureau.”

“Two Van Helsings in my salon. Should I be flattered or insulted?”

“What’s he talking about?” asks Baxter.

“Van Helsing was the professor who hunted Dracula,” I tell him.

“This is going to be fun, I can tell.”

“Put the tray there, Juan. Thank you.” There’s a pause, then Smith half-whispers, “I’m still training him. He has a long way to go, but he’s worth it. How do you take your coffee, Doctor?”

“Black, please.”

“Same for me,” says Kaiser.

There’s a tinkle of china, more groaning of springs.

“I’m not sure where to begin,” Lenz says. “We-”

“Let me save you both some time,” Smith interrupts. “You’re here because of the women who’ve been vanishing. You’ve discovered that the series of paintings known as the Sleeping Women depicts these women. Some bit of evidence has led you to Roger Wheaton’s program at Tulane. You’re now questioning Wheaton and the rest of us before turning the police loose on us and ripping our lives apart. Roger is very upset, and that upsets me. I’d very much like to hear the details of this supposed evidence.”

“You sound as if you were already aware of the Sleeping Women,” says Kaiser.

“I was.”

“How did you learn about them?”

“From a friend in Asia.”

“You have a lot of Asian friends?”

“I have friends all over the world. Friends, colleagues, clients, lovers. About three months ago I heard that paintings from a new series were topping a million in private sales. Then I heard some were to be exhibited in Hong Kong. I’ve been thinking of going to view them.”

“You were aware of the subject matter?” asks Lenz.

“Nude women sleeping was what I understood in the beginning. I only recently heard the rumors about the death theory.”

“How did you feel about the prospect that women might be dying to produce those paintings?”

A long pause. “I haven’t seen the paintings, so that’s difficult to answer.”

Lenz sips from his coffee cup; we can hear it over the mike. “Do you mean the quality of the paintings would determine your view of the morality of women dying to produce them?”

“To paraphrase Wilde, Doctor, there’s no such thing as a moral or immoral painting. A painting is either well done or badly done. If the paintings are beautiful, if they are indeed great art, then they justify their own existence. Any other circumstances involved in their creation are irrelevant.”

“That sounds familiar,” says Kaiser.

“How so?” asks Smith.

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

“No.”

“He’s a French expatriate who lives in the Cayman Islands.”

“I don’t know him. But there’s a certain irony in the name.”

“What’s that?” asks Lenz.

“Emil de Becque was the French expatriate in South Pacific”

“Son of a bitch,” hisses Baxter.

I can feel Lenz’s embarrassment through the ether. “You’re right,” he says. “I’d forgotten.”

“Perhaps this man took the surname as an alias?”

“De Becque’s father went to Southeast Asia in the 1930s,” says Lenz. “Maybe Michener heard the name and gave it to one of his island characters.”

“I’ll tell you someone I did know,” says Smith. “This should get you hot and bothered. Christopher Wingate.”

This time the silence is longer. “Why would you bring up Christopher Wingate?” asks Lenz.

“Let’s not play games, Doctor. I heard about Wingate’s death. I knew he was the dealer for the Sleeping Women. I thought nothing of it at the time. But now that the paintings are connected with possible murders, I see his death in a different light.”

“How did you know Wingate?” asks Kaiser.

“A mutual friend introduced us at a party in New York. I was considering switching from my present dealer to him.”

“Why?”

“Because he was, in a word, hot.”

“I’m going to ask you a sensitive question,” says Lenz. “Please don’t take offense. This is very important.”

“I’m on pins and needles.”

Lenz is probably furious at being mocked, but he soldiers on. “Is Roger Wheaton gay?”

Smith barks a little laugh that’s hard to read. “Did you ask Roger that?”

“No. I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to offend him.”

“I’m offended for him. Not because of anything to do with being gay, but because of the invasion of his privacy.”

“When people are dying, private matters often must become public. If you won’t answer the question, I will have to ask Wheaton. Is that what you want me to do?”

“No.”

“Very well.”

After a thoughtful pause, Smith says, “I wouldn’t say Roger is gay.”

“What would you say?”

“He’s a complex man. I’ve only known him personally for two years, and all that time he’s been seriously ill. I think his illness has caused him to concentrate on nonsexual areas of his life.”

“Have you ever seen him out with a woman?” Lenz asks. “Or with a woman at his home?”

“Roger doesn’t ‘go out.’ He’s either home or at the university. And yes, he has female guests.”

“Overnight?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Does he have particular male friends?”

“I flatter myself that I’m his friend.”

“Have you been his lover?”

“No.”

“Would you like to be?” asks Kaiser.

“Yes, I would.”

“Listen to this guy,” says Baxter. “Cool as they come.”

“Would you have any problem giving us your whereabouts on a particular set of dates?” asks Kaiser.

“I wouldn’t think so. But let me be frank about something, gentlemen. I’ll cooperate with this investigation up to a point. But if the police upset my life to an inordinate degree, without direct evidence against me, I’ll institute legal action against both the police and the FBI. I have the resources to vigorously pursue such an action, and with the recent history of the NOPD in this town, I’d say my chances were good. So be forewarned.”

There’s a silence I can only interpret as shock. I doubt that representatives of the FBI are accustomed to being talked to in this way by serial-murder suspects.

“Psychology happens to be a particular interest of mine, Doctor,” Smith goes on. “I happen to know that the incidence of homosexual serial killers is zero. So I think you’d have some difficulty persuading a jury that I’m a good candidate for harassment in this case.”

“We don’t necessarily believe the painter is the killer in this case,” Lenz says. “But we’re not focusing on you as a suspect. You’re simply one of four people with access to particular brush hairs taken from Sleeping Women canvases.”

“Tell me about these hairs.”

Kaiser quickly summarizes the link between the factory in Manchuria, the New York importer, and Wheaton’s special orders. When he finishes, Smith says, “So many questions behind your eyes, Agent Kaiser. Like little worms turning. You want to know everything. How exactly does it work? Does Frank really take it up the bum? Is he promiscuous? You have images of the old bathhouse scene in your mind? I was there for it, all right, the tail end of it. I was only seventeen. I sucked till the muscles in my face cramped. Does that make me a killer?”

“Listen to this guy,” says Baxter.

“Why do you live in the French Quarter rather than close to Tulane?” asks Kaiser.

“The lower Quarter is a haven for gays. Didn’t you know? There may be more of us here than there are of you. You should come back on Gay Pride Day and see me with my entourage. I’m quite a celebrity down here.”

“Tell us about your fellow students,” says Lenz. “What do you think of Leon Gaines?”

“Pond scum. Roger gave him a matched pair of abstracts as a gift, small but very fine. Leon sold one of them two weeks later – for heroin, I’m sure. I didn’t have the heart to tell Roger.”

“And Gaines’s work?”

“His work?” Another laugh. “The violence has a certain authenticity. But I think of Leon as a graffiti artist. A boy painting dirty words and symbols on a wall. He wants desperately to shock, but he has no real insight, so the ultimate effect is flat.”

“What about Thalia Laveau?”

“Thalia’s a lovely creature. Lovely and sad.”

“Why sad?”

“Have you talked to her yet?”

“No.”

“She suffered terribly as a child, I think. She carries a great deal of pain around.”

“What about her paintings?”

“They’re charming. A sort of tribute to the nobility of the lower classes – a myth to which I don’t happen to subscribe, but one she somehow manages to bring to life on canvas.”

“Have you seen any of her nude work?”

“I didn’t know she did any.”

“What do you think of her skill as an artist?”

“Thalia has a gift. She works very fast, probably because she sees to the heart of things so quickly. She’ll do well, if she sticks with it.”

“Why wouldn’t she?”

“As I said… she has a certain fragility. Fragility at the center of toughness. Like a nautilus hidden within a shell.”

“What about Roger Wheaton’s work?” asks Kaiser.

“Roger’s a genius.” Smith’s tone is matter-of-fact, as though he’d said, “The sky is blue.”

“One of a handful I’ve met in my life.”

“Why is he a genius?” asks Kaiser.

“Have you seen his work?”

“Some of it.”

“You don’t think he’s a genius?”

“I’m not qualified to make that judgment.”

“Well, I am. Roger isn’t like the rest of us. He paints from within. Utterly and completely. I try to do it, and I like to think I occasionally succeed. But the external is an important part of the process for me. I plan, I use models, rigorous technique. I strive to capture beauty, to freeze and yet animate it. Roger doesn’t use models or photographs or anything else. When he paints, the divine simply flows out through his brush. Every time I look at his canvases, I see something different. Particularly the abstract ones.”

“Do you know anything about the clearing he supposedly paints? Is it a real place?”

“I assume it is, or was, but I really have no idea. I don’t think it matters. It’s just a point of departure for him, the way a cliff might be the point of departure for an eagle.”

“It may well matter in relation to these crimes,” says Lenz.

“Are you really looking at Roger as a suspect? That’s ludicrous. He’s the gentlest man I know. Also the most ethical.”

“Did you know he killed several men in Vietnam?” asks Kaiser.

“I know he was in the war. He doesn’t talk about it. But surely you don’t consider killing in combat to be murder?”

“No. But a man who’s killed once can kill again. Perhaps more easily than some others.”

“Perhaps. Have you ever killed anyone, Agent Kaiser?”

“Yes.”

“In war?”

“Yes.”

“As a civilian? In the line of duty?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll bet you have. There’s violence in you. I can see it. I’d like to paint you sometime.”

“I’m not available.”

“You’ve seen some terrible things, haven’t you?”

“It’s a tough world, Frank.”

“Isn’t it? Dr. Lenz has seen things, too, but they don’t affect him the same way. Evil and brutality offend you. You have a strong moral streak. A compulsion to judge.”

“This is a waste of time,” Kaiser says testily. “Our photographer should be here any minute.”

Baxter takes hold of my elbow. “Move. Go, go, go.”

Outside the van, I look both ways, then cross Esplanade, my eyes on Frank Smith’s cottage. It presents a simple face to the street: four windows, three dormers, and a gabled roof, with a door where the porte cochere would have been a century ago. My knock is answered by a beautiful Hispanic boy of about nineteen. Juan, I presume.

“Jes?” he says.

“I’m from the FBI. I’m here to take some pictures.”

“Si. Follow me.”

As he leads me through the entrance hall, I realize that Smith’s Creole cottage has been transformed from humble nineteenth-century abode into a showplace for antiques and art. To my right is a luxurious dining room with a Regency table, Empire chandeliers, and a huge mirror over a French commode. On the wall above a hunt board hangs a life-size portrait of a nude man reclining on a chaise. He looks vaguely familiar: large-boned but not well-muscled, yet his face has a remarkable nobility. The picture is languidly erotic, with full frontal nudity, and looks as though it could have been painted in the 1500s.

“Senora?” Juan says. “Please?”

A few steps and a left turn take us to the salon, where the others sit drinking coffee. This room, too, is stunning, with Oriental wood screens and an Aubusson rug the size of a wading pool. Frank Smith looks up as I reach the door, and though I intended to keep my eyes on my camera, I find myself looking square into Smith’s face. The young painter has sea-green eyes, an aquamarine shade I’ve only seen in the eyes of women. They’re set in a deeply tanned face, above a Roman nose and sensual mouth. Both his face and body have a remarkable symmetry, and he looks lean and muscular under his white linen clothes. Suddenly recalling my purpose for being here, I blink and turn to Kaiser.

“I’m sorry I’m late. What do you want me to shoot?”

“Anything by Mr. Smith here.”

Frank Smith hasn’t taken his eyes off me, and I’m eerily certain that he has seen me before. Me or my sister. That possibility closes my throat and brings sweat to my face.

“The nude in the dining room is mine,” Smith says.

I nod and manage to speak one sentence. “I won’t be a minute.”

“I beg your pardon,” he says. “Have we met?”

I clear my throat and look at Kaiser, half hoping he’ll draw his gun. “I don’t think so.”

“In San Francisco, perhaps? Have you been there?”

I live there when I’m not working… “Yes, but not for-”

“My God, you’re Jordan Glass.”

Kaiser, Lenz, and I stare at one another like fools.

“You are,” Smith says. “I might not have recognized you, but with the camera, something just clicked. My God, what are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’ve joined the FBI?”

“No.”

“Well, what in the world are you doing here?”

The truth has a voice of its own. “My sister was one of the victims.”

Smith’s mouth drops open. “Oh, no. Oh, I see.” He gets to his feet and looks as though he wants to hug me, as though the tragedy had just happened. “Actually, that’s not true. I don’t see at all.”

Kaiser is glaring at me like I shouldn’t have given away the game, but once Smith recognized me, there was really no point in continuing.

“We were identical twins,” I explain.

The artist’s eyes narrow as he tries to understand; it doesn’t take him long.

“You’re a stalking horse! They’re using you to try to panic the killer into revealing himself.”

I say nothing.

Smith shakes his head in amazement. “Well, I’m happy to meet you, despite the circumstances. I love your work. I have for years.”

“Thank you.”

“How did you recognize her?” asks Lenz.

Smith directs his answer to me. “Someone pointed you out to me at a party in San Francisco. I stood within three feet of you for twenty minutes, talking to someone else. I wanted to meet you, but I didn’t want to intrude.”

As I look back at Smith, the portrait in his dining room clicks in my mind. “Is the man in the dining room painting Oscar Wilde?”

His eyes light with pleasure. “Yes. I used the photo on the cover of the Ellmann biography for his face, and various other photos to get an idea of the rest of his body. Wilde is a hero of mine.”

“I love the cottage,” I tell him, laying a hand on his arm to gauge his reaction. He clearly enjoys it. “Do you have a garden?”

Smith beams. “Of course. Follow me.”

Without paying the slightest bit of attention to Kaiser or Lenz, he escorts me to the front door, which leads to a walled garden filled with citrus plants, roses, and a gnarled wisteria that’s probably as old as the house. One wall of the garden is formed by an old servants’ quarters, which appears to have been converted into a wing of the cottage. Rushing water from a three-tiered fountain fills the courtyard with sound, but what holds me rapt is the light -glorious sunlight falling softly through the foliage with the perfect clarity I remember from Marcel de Becque’s Sleeping Women.

“It’s lovely,” I say softly, wondering if my sister ever lay unconscious or dead on the paving bricks before me.

“You have a standing invitation. I’d love to entertain you. Please call anytime.”

My second invitation today. “I just might do that.”

Footsteps sound on the porch behind us. Kaiser says, “Mr. Smith, we’d like you to keep Ms. Glass’s presence in New Orleans to yourself.”

“Spoilsport,” Smith retorts, cutting his eyes at me. “They’re no fun at all, are they?”

“And please do not contact Thalia Laveau about his visit.”

Anger flares in Smith’s eyes. “Stop giving me orders in my own house.”

In the awkward silence that follows, I suddenly want out of this place, away from this man who could have been the last person my sister ever saw.

“We really must go,” Lenz says.

“No rest for the wicked,” Smith quips, his humor inexplicably back in gear. Taking my arm, he leads me back through the house to the porch facing Esplanade Avenue.

“Remember,” he says. “You’re always welcome.”

I nod but do not speak, and without a word to Kaiser or Lenz, Smith turns and goes back into his cottage, leaving us on the small porch.

“So much for the element of surprise,” Kaiser says as we cross through traffic to the van. “How about that picture of Oscar Wilde?”

“Beautifully done,” says Lenz, who appears preoccupied by something.

“Smith reminds me of Dorian Gray,” I think aloud. “A beautiful amoral man who will never age.”

“Why amoral?” asks Kaiser. “Not because he’s gay.”

“No. It’s something I sense about him. He’s like de Becque, yet different somehow. What do you think, Doctor?”

Lenz has a strange smile on his face. “You know what no one remembers about Dorian Gray?”

“What?”

“He murdered a man, then bribed a chemist to come to his house and destroy the body. The chemist used special compounds to burn the corpse until there was nothing left.”

“You’re kidding,” says Kaiser.

“No. Wilde was ahead of his time in many ways. Dorian Gray’s theory of murder was no corpse, no evidence, no crime.”