The Museum of Desire

Chapter 38

I drove home thinking about how to approach Crispin Moman. Then I backed up and remembered the job I’d been trained for and looked at the big picture: Ethically, should I approach him?

This was a boy who’d been dealt an unusual hand. I couldn’t see any benefit he’d get from getting more involved. And if his name found its way into the murder book, he could conceivably find himself on a witness list.

If he was my kid, I’d say no.

As someone licensed to take care of people, I said no.

At the next red light, I texted Milo, told him I’d changed my mind and why.

My phoned pinged immediately.

I continued to drive west on Sunset, veered north on Benedict, came to Clearwater Lane, and hooked a right.

Still no cars at the blue house. More mail, spillover from the now full box, piled haphazardly in front of the door. I sifted through it.

Occupant. Resident. Homeowner.

Maybe Reed was right and whoever lived here was on the other side of the planet. With or without Medina Okash.

I returned to the Seville. Just as I turned the key, another text came through.

Robin met me at the door, still in her work overalls, hands drumming her hips, bouncing on her feet.

Not like her, and Blanche was also keyed up, snorting and rotating her head.

I said, “What’s going on, girls?”

Robin took my hand, led me to my office, pointed at my computer. “Sent it to you from my laptop because your screen’s wide.”

Faded color and curvaceous form filled the monitor.

A painting, blurred, busy.

From a distance, the interior of what looked to be a Renaissance drawing room. Voluptuous folds of satin and velvet and embroidered cloth, intricate brocade, tides of sable and ermine fur. All that excess punctuated by gem-like dots of metallic trim.

Luxuriant heaps of far-too-much in a confined space suggested imminent collapse.

I sat down, took a closer look, and amended my first impression: not a room; a horse-drawn coach crowded with people.

Up front a driver gripped the reins in a white-gloved hand as he craned back toward his passengers. Beyond him a star-flecked night sky, in front of him a hint of dappled equine haunches.

Black man. Literally. His skin rendered in inky tones limned blue and lilac.

Scarlet lips, milky teeth, the sclera of eyes tinted butterscotch as he leered at his passengers. No subtlety to racist intention.

He wore the type of Moorish garb that had filled the fantasies of Europeans travelers centuries ago as they indulged in “Orientalist” art: three gold hoops in one pendulous ear, grape-purple livery edged in silver, a creamy white turban.

The leer cartoonish.

I shifted to the objects of the driver’s attention.

The passenger sitting farthest from the viewer — next to the coach’s window — was a sallow, child-sized man of uncertain age with a tiny, scrunched, capuchin-monkey face. His slight frame was covered by a grass-green, high-buttoned tunic hemmed at the bottom by yellow triangles ending in bells.

Hooding his tiny head was more green cloth adorned by floppy donkey ears.

Bucktoothed smile.

Professional fool, on the job.

Closest to the eye, bathed in a ray of what had probably been bright-golden light centuries ago but was now ecru, sat a handsome, young, rosy-cheeked man, resplendent in blue silk and white lace. Glossy ringlets of dark hair trailed below his shoulders. Gold epaulets on his shoulders suggested military rank. So did a royal-blue cavalier’s hat balanced on his right knee.

The smirking expression of a spoiled adolescent. A waxed mustache and a wispy triangle of hair on his chin failed to add maturity. Nor did slumping posture, drunken eyes, and an agape mouth molded into a besotted grin. In the center of the mouth, a tongue tinted and shaped like a Japanese eggplant curled backward, a fleshy nautilus probing the innards beyond.

Sitting between the men, pressed close to the cavalier’s right flank, was a hook-nosed crone in a fraying, dust-colored dress, the garment baggy but unable to conceal a barrel of girth.

A black beret roosted lopsided atop strands of white hair so wild they appeared electrified. Drool beaded on her chin. The dress was cut low and square, exposing puckered cleavage that dipped to the withered roseate of the woman’s right nipple.

Like the three men, smiling. Crafty smile, as if a spell had been cast. Two brown teeth on top, a single incisor below.

The hag’s right hand, gnarled and liver-spotted, circled the young man’s penis. Small organ, but erect.

On the floor of the coach, two snub-nosed dogs, tongues drooping, observing the merriment. Resting on a bed of scarlet taffeta.

I turned away, heart racing. Robin’s hands alit on my shoulders and stayed there.

I put my hand on hers. “How did you find this?”

“The more I thought about what you described, your suspect running a gallery, the more I wondered if someone had tried to re-create an actual work of art. My first thought was Hieronymus Bosch or someone like him but I came up empty. So I keyed erotic art along with the basic victim descriptions. Black man young man old woman. I wasn’t sure how to characterize the mentally challenged guy but finally I said to heck with political correctness and put in fool. Because that’s how I saw a cruel murderer viewing him. To my amazement, this came up right away on a website called youdidntinventsexstupid.com. There’s all sorts of racy stuff on it. Apparently, Rembrandt went for outdoor sex, did a bunch of etchings, the most famous is The Monk in the Cornfield. Then there’s Picasso, Egon Schiele, Japanese woodcuts. But also this.”

“Who runs the site?”

“A woman named Suzanne Hirto. Art history professor at Swarthmore, she directed it to ‘the smug, entitled brats who invade my classroom.’ ”

I said, “Not a great career move.”

“You’ve got that right, she was fired. Not for erotica, for hurting the poor dears’ feelings. But she keeps the site up, message of defiance and all that. Anyway, here it is: The Museum of Desire, painted sometime around 1510, probably in Venice by one Antonio Domenico Carascelli. He was rumored to be a student of Titian but that can’t be proved. This is the only known work attributed to him and even that’s up for grabs. But putting aside taste issues, he was good, don’t you think? So maybe.”

I stared at the image. “How long did you work on this?”

“You know,” she said. “You get caught up.”

“Where’s the painting now?”

“No one knows. I emailed Hirto — she’s retired, sculpts and paints. She answered right away, said she got the image from a catalog put out by a Holocaust survivor group back in the seventies.”

“Nazi art?”

“Yes, but not what you’d think. This wasn’t stolen from Jewish collectors, it was part of Hermann Göring’s personal collection. Most of which was plunder. Great stuff — Velázquez, Renoir, Monet, all stolen. Like a good Nazi, he left handwritten lists that finally got cataloged a few years ago. But the bastard also bought and hoarded erotica that he didn’t record. This may have been an exception because of the Titian link, but no one knows for sure. The survivors tried to get compensation for reparations but they were poorly funded, relinquished control to a larger group who’s still struggling to get the stolen stuff back. So no interest in a dirty picture by an unknown artist.”

“Unbelievable,” I said. “That you found it.”

“It turned out not to be that complicated, hon.”

“That’s like saying all a drag racer needs to do is drive straight.” I got up, took her face in my hands, and kissed her hard. “Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”

“Aw,” she said. “Now I need a bigger hat.”

She and Blanche returned to the studio and I studied the painting, feeling queasy rather than triumphant.

I began to send the image to Milo. Decided phone-miniaturization would lessen the impact and texted instead.

Paraphrasing Robin. Why mess with brilliance?