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beat the truth out of him. I resolved to proceed carefully, covering myself at all times. Life is never simple,
I told myself. Sit still and gather, regroup.
Slowly, I felt the tension go out of me: Slowly, too, my world grew again, and I saw within it the
possibility that S really knew me, knew me well, and may even have arranged events so that I would
dispense with thinking and surrender to the moment. No, I would not be like the others . . .
I sat there and thought for a long while before I started the engine again and drove on slowly.
It was a grimy brick building situated on a corner. It was four stories in height, with occasional
spray-painted obscenities on the alley side and on the wall facing the narrower street. I discovered the
graffiti, a few broken windows and the fire escape as I strolled slowly about the place, looking it over. By
then a light rain was just beginning to fall. The lower two stories were occupied by the Brutus Storage
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Company, according to a sign beside the stairs in a small hallway I entered. The place smelled of urine,
and there was an empty Jack Daniels bottle lying on the dusty windowsill to my right. Two mailboxes
hung upon the flaking wall. One said "Brutus Storage," the other bore the legend "V M." Both were
empty.
I mounted the stair, expecting it to creak. It did not. There were four knobless doors letting upon the
second floor hallway, all of them closed. The outlines of what might be cartons were visible through
several of the frosted panes in their upper sections. There were no sounds from within.
I surprised a black cat dozing on the next stairway. She arched her back, showed me her teeth,
made a hissing noise, then turned and bounded up the stairs and out of sight.
The next landing also had four doors-three of them apparently nonfunctional, the fourth dark-stained
and shellacked shiny. It bore a small brass plate that read "Melman." I knocked.
There was no answer. I tried again several times, with the same result. No sounds from within either.
It seemed likely that these were his living quarters and that the fourth floor, with the possibility of a
skylight, held his studio. So I turned away and took the final flight.
I reached the top and saw that one of the four doors there was slightly ajar. I halted and listened for
a moment. From beyond it came faint sounds of movement. I advanced and gave it a few knocks. I
heard a sudden intake of breath from somewhere inside. I pushed on the door.
He stood about twenty feet away beneath a large skylight and he had turned to face me-a tall,
broad-shouldered man with dark beard and eyes. He held a brush in his left hand and a palette in his
right. He wore a paint-smeared apron over his Levi's and had on a plaid sport shirt. The easel at his back
held the outlines of what could be a madonna and child. There were a great many other canvases about,
all of them facing the walls or covered.
"Hello," I said. "You are Victor Melman?"
He nodded, neither smiling nor frowning, placed his palette on a nearby table, his brush into a jar of
solvent. He picked up a damp-looking cloth then and wiped his hands with it.
"And yourself ?" he asked, tossing the cloth aside and facing me again.
"Merle Corey. You knew Julia Barnes."
"I don't deny it," he said. "Your use of the past tense would seem to indicate-"
"She's dead all right. I want to talk to you about it."
"All right," he said, untying his apron. "Let's go downstairs then. No place to sit up here."
He hung the apron upon a nail near the door and stepped outside. I followed him. He turned back
and locked the studio before proceeding down the stairs. His movements were smooth, almost graceful. I
could hear the rain on the roof.
He used the same key to unlock the dark door on the third floor. He drew the door open and stood
aside, gesturing for me to enter. I did, traversing a hallway that led past a kitchen, its counters covered
with empty bottles, stacks of dishes, pizza cartons. Bursting bags of trash leaned against cupboards; the
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floor looked sticky here and there and the place smelled like a spice factory next door to a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]