Belinda Page 15

“Terrific.” She popped her gum, hands on hips, black sweater tight over her breasts. “And all this goes in a vault somewhere, or do you burn it finally?”

  “Don’t be a smart aleck. Go to the movies.”

  “You’re crazy, you know it? I mean it this time, I do, I do.”

  “And what if I did show them?” I asked. “What if the whole world saw them? What if they were plastered all over Time and Newsweek and the papers, and Artforum and Art in America, and the National Enquirer and you name it, and they called me a genius and a child molester and the reincarnation of Rembrandt and a kidnapper? Then what would happen to you? Miss Belinda with no last name, no family, no history? With your picture in every newspaper in the country? And make no mistake. It would be like that. It’s that kind of story.”

  That steady look, that serious look. I’m not sixteen. I’m old enough to be your mother. Except when I pop my gum.

  “Would you have the guts to do it?” she asked. Not a mean voice. Just on the line.

  “What if I said I knew it was just a matter of time? What if I said that no artist works like I’m working on paintings he never intends to show to anybody? What if I said it was like walking closer and closer to a cliff, knowing at some point, when you weren’t looking, you’d go over? I’m not talking tomorrow. I’m not talking next week or next month, maybe not even next year. I mean, there is a whole lifetime of work to be undermined here, a whole lifetime to be destroyed, and that takes guts, yes, guts, but sooner or later—”

  “If you said all that, then I’d say you have more guts than you let on sometimes.”

  “But let’s keep the focus on you. What happens if these parents or whoever they are open Time magazine and see your picture there, painted by Jeremy Walker?”

  Sober, reflecting.

  “What could it prove?” she asked. “That we’d met? That I’d posed for some pictures? Is that a crime, to pose for pictures? They wouldn’t have anything on you unless I supplied it, and I will never never supply it.”

  “You’re still not understanding me. What happens to you? Do they come to collect their little girl posthaste from the dirty old man who’s been painting her pictures?”

  Eyes narrowing. Mouth getting hard. Looking at me, then away, then back at me again.

  “A year and a half.” A voice so low it sounds like somebody else inside her body. “Less than that, actually, until I’m eighteen and then there is nothing, absolutely nothing, they can do to me! And you can show those pictures! You can hang them on the walls of the Museum of Modern Art, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing they can do to either one of us!” They! who are they? Who are they and what did they do to you?

  “Show them!” she said. “You have to show them.”

  Silence.

  “No. I take that back. If it’s falling off a cliff, then you have to make that decision. But when the time comes, don’t use me as an excuse!”

  “No, I’ll just go on using you, period,” I said. “Using me? You? Using me?”

  “That’s how anybody in his or her right mind Would see it,” I said. I glanced at the canvases surrounding us. And then I looked at her.

  “You think it’s all cut and dried?” she asked. “You think you’re grown-up and everything, and so I’ve got to be the one who’s being taken advantage of?. Well, you’re nuts.”

  “It scares me, that’s all. The way I accept your word for it that it’s OK you’re with me—”

  “And whose word could you accept!”

  Silence.

  “Don’t get mad,” I said. “We have years to argue about it.”

  “Do we?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Stop talking about being a kidnapper or a child molester. I’m not a child! For God’s sakes, I’m not.”

  “I know—”

  “No, you don’t. The only time you don’t feel guilty is when we’re in bed or you’ve got the paintbrush in your hand, you know it? For God’s sakes, start believing in us.”

  “I do believe in us,” I said. “And I’ll tell you something else. If I don’t fall off that cliff, books or no books, I’ll never be anything.” Steady from her.

  “Never be anything? Jeremy Walker, the household word?”

  “That’s right. That’s what I said.”

  “Then let me tell you something,” she said. But she hesitated; then: “I can’t explain it, but just remember. The people who are looking for me? They wouldn’t dare try to do anything to you.”

  What the hell did that mean?

  THE day they came to install Andy Blatky’s sculpture she did a disappearing act. I didn’t know she was leaving until I heard the MG pull out.

  Andy’s big-shouldered work looked good on the back patio. It seemed to be reaching up towards the decks and the house, the fluid lines of the piece accentuated against the dark bricks beneath it, the plain whitewashed fence on three sides.

  Andy and I took an hour or more to rig up the small nighttime spotlights. Then we sat at the kitchen table, talking, drinking beer. “How about showing me that new work?” he said.

  I was so tempted. I just sat there, thinking soon, very soon.

  [15]

  THREE days later Dan came banging on the door.

  “Where have you been? Why the hell aren’t you answering my messages?”

  “Look, I’m working,” I said. I had the brush in my hand. Halfway through the brass bed canvas. “I don’t want you coming in right now.”

  “You what!”

  “Dan, look—”

  “Is she here?”

  “No, she’s out riding, but she’ll be back any minute.”

  “That’s terrific?’

  He came storming into the front hall.

  “I don’t even want to come in this house with her here.”

  “So don’t.”

  “Look at this picture, idiot!” he said. He took it out of a manila envelope. I shut the front door behind him, then turned on the hall light.

  It was Belinda most definitely. A Kodachrome five by seven of her in a white dress, leaning against the stone railing of a terrace. Blue sky, sea behind her. Shocking to see her in another world. I hated the sight of it. “Turn it over,” he said.

  I read the small clear felt-tip writing on the back: her height, weight-age, sixteen. No name. “Have you seen this girl? She’s wanted for an important part in a theatrical feature. Reward for any information leading to her whereabouts. No questions asked. Contact Eric Sampson Agency.” A Beverly Hills address.

  “Where did you get this?”

  He took the picture and returned it to the envelope.

  “Halfway house in the Haight,” he said. “This guy Sampson flies up here, passes these out at the youth shelters, on the street. Anybody finding Miss Up-and-coming gets a reward for it. Just call his number. I called his number. He says a big studio wants her, she tried out for a part, then vanished. He doesn’t have a name.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Neither do I. But he’s tough, this guy. And he knows a lot about her, that much I can tell you. I tried a couple of phony possibilities on him immediately. No, his kid is quite educated, trilingual, as he puts it. And her hair is definitely not bleached. And I’ll tell you something else. Couple of calls to New York turned up just what I thought they would. Sampson’s been on the East Coast passing these out too.”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “Money, Jer, lots of it. Maybe a big name. These people want her back bad, and they’re spending a bundle on it, but they won’t go public. I checked and rechecked with missing persons, missing juveniles, absolutely zilch.”

  “Crazy.”

  “They aren’t about to hang a sign on her that says ‘Kidnap me.’ But that doesn’t mean they won’t pour their money into hauling you into court on every conceivable morals charge from—”

  “We’ve been through that.”

  “And I checked out this Sampson by the way, and he’s not an
agent, he’s a lawyer, in the business affairs end of the agency. People like that don’t scout.”

  “The funny thing is—”

  “What?”

  “It’s not impossible. She could be some kind of movie star. I mean, it wouldn’t be out of the question at all.”

  “Then why doesn’t he have a name for her? No, it’s bullshit all the way.”

  “What about the director I mentioned, that Susan Jeremiah?”

  “Dead end. Oh, she’s hot, real hot, did some arty thing that got raves at Cannes, turned in a good TV flick, so she’s the genius of the week down there. But she’s got no missing sisters, cousins, nieces, or daughters. Big Houston family. Just plain folks with loads of real estate money. She’s Daddy’s girl, drives a big shiny Cadillac, if you can believe it. She’s really on her way.”

  “But nothing—”

  “Not a thing.”

  “OK. You did your best. Now we should drop the whole thing.”

  “What? Are you out of your head? Get out of this mess, Jeremy. Give her some bucks, send her on her way. Burn everything she leaves behind her. Then get on a plane for Katmandu yourself. Take a nice long vacation where nobody can find you. If the shit hits the fan and she tells all, it’s your word against hers, you never heard of her.”

  “You’re getting carried away, Dan. She’s not Mata Hari. She’s a little girl.”

  “Jer, this Sampson hands out hundred-dollar bills to anyone on the streets that gives him even a clue to this little girl’s whereabouts.”

  “Does he have clues?”

  “If he did, you’d be dead in the water. But he’s been here twice this month! All he has to do is connect with the kids in that Page Street address or the cop who put your name in his little book—”

  “Yeah, but that’s not as easy as it sounds, Dan.”

  “Jer, the cops down there saw her with you! They wrote down this address. Pick another runaway, Jer, some waif from the sticks that nobody ever wants to see again. The police don’t even bother picking them up unless they can nail them for shoplifting. There’s lots of free kids out there for the taking. Just go down to the Haight-Ashbury and stick out your hand.”

  “Look Dan. For now I want you to call it quits.”

  “No.”

  “You like working for nothing? I’m telling you it’s closed.”

  “Jeremy, you aren’t just a goddamned fucking client to me, man, you’re my friend.”

  “Yeah, Dan, and she’s my lover. And I can’t sneak behind her back again on this. I can’t. I don’t even want to know this much and not tell her, but how can I tell her that I snooped?”

  “Jer, this guy may very well trace her to your door!”

  “Yeah he might. And if he does, well, she’s not going anywhere with him or anyone else unless she wants to.”

  “You’re flipping out! You’ve fucking lost your mind. I ought to have you committed for your own sake. You think this is one of your storybooks, you’ve—”

  “Look, Dan, you’re my lawyer. I’m saying you’re off the case. Tear up the picture and forget everything I told you. When she gets ready, she’ll tell me herself all about who she is. I know she will. Until then ... well, we’ve got what we’ve got just like anybody else, I guess.”

  “You’re not hearing me, old buddy. Your agents have been trying to get you all week about this Rainbow Productions deal for Angelica and you’re blowing it. Blowing everything. They don’t make animated cartoon movies of books by kidnappers and child molesters.”

  “I am hearing you. I love her. That’s what matters to me right now.” And what is happening to me matters, the painting that is up in the attic right now matters, goddamn it, and I want to get back to it.

  “Don’t give me this song and dance, Jer! My God, is this kid a witch? What are you going to do next, the plastic surgery routine, dye on the g~� [,~t~, %t9.rt ~››~rl. txg ~b_ shirts open to the waist and gold chains and hiphugger jeans and doing cocaine ‘cause it makes you feel as young as she is?”

  “Dan, look, I trust you, and I respect you. But you can’t change what’s happening here. You’ve done your duty. You’re off the hook now.”

  “Like hell.”

  He was really steaming. He glanced around at the hallway, the living room crowded with toys. His eyes were moving critically over stuff he’d seen a thousand rimes before. “Jet, I’m going after this guy Sampson, I’m going to crack this little story of his, if I have to go down south to do it in person.”

  He opened the front door. Blast of traffic noise from Seventeenth Street. She might be coming around the corner any minute.

  “Look, Dan. I realized something a long time ago. I don’t really want the truth about Belinda. I just want to hear something that will make me feel OK about having her with me.”

  “I’m hip, Jer, I caught that the first time around.”

  “Well, Dan, when you can handle only one kind of answer to a question, it is really better not to ask.”

  “When I find out something else, I’m calling you,” he said. “And you answer your damn phone. And you call your agent, for God’s sakes. She’s been trying to reach you for three days!”

  [16?]

  THE house was still vibrating from his voice it seemed. I stood there holding the brush. OK. One call. It had been almost three weeks.

  I went in and called Clair Clarke. Break out the champagne. The deal was all set with Rainbow Productions for the eight Angelica books to be made into two feature animated films. They had agreed to all our terms. Movies to be substantially based on the plot of the books, all character rights retained by us. Contracts in a week.

  “How’s it coming by the way?” she asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “The new book.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, Clair. Let’s celebrate this little turn of events for a while, not rush things.”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “No! Everything’s fine actually, better than ever.” Over and out.

  I went back to the attic and the six panels of number seven: Belinda in Brass Bed.

  Belinda, always seen through the bars, slept in a nightgown in the first. In the second she had shifted position, nightgown pushed up. Third, nightgown draped over her, breasts bare. Fourth, full nude. Fifth, close in on her profile waist up. Six, very close full face turned to us, only framed by the bars, asleep on the pillow.

  My brush was moving as if my right hand had a mind of its own. I’d say, Do it. My hand would do it.

  Don’t think about anything else.

  Four o’clock in the morning. She was down in the kitchen again. I could hear her faraway voice.

  I went to the railing, the way I’d done that first time. I kept thinking of the things Dan had said.

  I could hear her laughing a little. Cheerful, intimate like before.

  I made my way down slowly until I stood at the yule post at the bottom of the stairs and I could see her through the kitchen door. She said something quickly in the phone and then hung up.

  “I woke you up again, didn’t I?” she asked, as she came towards me. “Don’t tell him where you are,” I said.

  “Who?” A shadow falling over her face, her lip quivering slightly, look in her eyes I’ve never seen before.

  “The guy you were talking to, the oldest buddy in the world, the one in New York. It was him, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot I told you.” Eyes dulling, distracted. If she is a liar, she gets the Sarah Bernhardt award.

  “Somebody could be looking, a private detective. He could question people. They could tell.”

  “You’re half asleep,” she said. “You sound like a bear. Come on back upstairs.” She looked tired, as if her head hurt her, that kind of dullness in her eyes.

  “You didn’t tell him the address, did you?”

  “You’re getting excited over nothing,” she whispered. “He’s my buddy, he’d never tell what I told him.”

>   “Just stay away from the street kids, will you? Don’t see them anymore or call them, OK?”

  She didn’t look at me. She was tugging, trying to get me to go back up the steps.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” I said. I took her face in my hands and kissed her very slowly.

  She closed her eyes, letting me kiss her, opening her mouth, her body becoming limp in my arms.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said in the softest whisper, her eyebrows knitted. “Don’t be guilty and don’t be afraid.”

  ON August 15 I was out of stretched canvas. I took out the bucket of flat white paint and went over the two I had started for the Angelica book.

  Odd to see those images covered up by the thick white coat, to see Angelica disappearing. I had to stop, stare at the whole process for a moment. Angelica through a veil of white. Good-bye, my darling. Inventory of what has been done.

  One, two, and three, The Carousel Horse Trio.’ Belinda in nightgown on the horse; Belinda nude on the horse; Belinda with punk hair and makeup nude on the horse.

  Four, Belinda with Dollhouse. Five, Belinda in Riding Clothes. Six, Holy Communion. Seven, Belinda in Brass Bed. Eight, Belinda with Dolls.

  Nine, Artist and Model—small canvas, not good, work in progress. Artist can not paint himself nude. Doesn’t turn him on even minimally. Love scene is a fake, besides, because artist could not do it with camera clicking away. Belinda could.

  (“I don’t understand your hang-ups about sex, just sex, you know. I wish I could make it go away, that I could kiss you the way the Prince kisses Sleeping Beauty and you would open your eyes and feel no more pain.”)

  Ten, Belinda Dancing—another small canvas, of her naked, hair in braids, beads around her neck, whirling on the kitchen floor to rock music. Bratlet. Very very good!

  I’d continued painting in the titles themselves so that they were part of the work. And now I was going back and putting in the numbers. The continuity would be inseparable from the parts.

  The miracle here wasn’t merely the speed. I’d had bursts like this before, right after I was first published, when I created so many books that I became my own industry.

  No, it was a deepening of the style. The pictures were cleaner, harsher, and utterly free of the Jeremy Walker clich6s that had encrusted everything before this. The automatic cobwebs, the inevitable dirt, the expected decay was not there.