“Well, Faye, you must care about him despite his weaknesses, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“I work for him, that’s all,” Faye insisted.
“You sure that’s all?”
Even if it wasn’t, what business was it of his? “Are you trying to piss me off on purpose?”
Craig grinned, chewing on a bar straw. “Only for the sake of practicality. Offhand, I can’t think of anyone who’s perfect. Can you? I mean, besides yourself, of course.”
Faye glared at him. She had a mind to slap him but didn’t for fear that he would probably slap back a lot harder.
“He used to be famous, sort of — I mean locally. Couple of years ago he solved a bunch of really bad murders.”
“What’s that got to do with what we’re talking about?” Faye said.
“A lot. Jack’s devoted his career to helping people in need and making the world a little bit better. He always got the worst murder cases because he was the best investigator in the county. Every day he was neck-deep in the worst crimes you could imagine. He had to look at all that — all that tragedy, all that evil — and somehow hold up enough to get the job done. Could you, Faye? Could you work on a case where some slob is raping kids to death and burying them in his basement? Could you work on a case where crackheads are kidnaping babies for ransom and then killing the babies? Could you do that and hold up, year after year?”
“No,” Faye said.
“Jack did, and there are a lot of people alive today because of it, and there are a lot of scumbags and murders sitting in the can because Jack had the strength to hold up.”
Faye didn’t know what to say. If Craig was trying to make her feel like shit, he was doing a fine job. “So what happened?”
“He burned out, used himself up. About a year ago he was working on a pedophile case. He followed up a bunch of long-shot leads and got a line on a suspect, some rich guy, president of some big company. Jack’s superiors told him to lay off or else. But Jack didn’t lay off. He bamboozled a warrant to search the guy’s house. He found dozens of videotapes of the rich guy and his friends sodomizing little kids. The guy’s doing life in the state pen now. But that was it for Jack. He was never the same.”
Faye felt a lump in her throat. “And now you think I’m a shitty person for not taking Jack’s problems to heart.”
“I wouldn’t say you’re a shitty person, Faye. Just not a very considerate one.” With that, then, Craig loaded up a tray of Heinekens and Rocks and took them to a table.
I guess he’s right, Faye thought, though she didn’t like the idea of being outpsychologized by a brash, cocky bartender. When Jack came back from the men’s room, Faye tried to smile but it didn’t come off. I’m sorry, Jack, she thought.
“Baalzephon,” he muttered, jiggling the ice in his glass. She watched this blank and tragic futility — fleeing one form of hell through the inundation of another. She felt helpless.
He was getting drunk already, but his eyes looked keen, or ruminant in some displaced wisdom. “Baalzephon,” he muttered again. He signaled Craig for drink number four.
Baalzephon, Faye thought. Madness. Devils. He’s right. They gave him a real winner this time.
And for the next hour she watched Jack Cordesman disappear into his own impresa, not one of triads or satanic rites, but the universal impresa: alcohol.
Chapter 18
Passion for everything, the strange words seemed to lilt in her head; they were like a shadow peering over her shoulder as she sketched. Veronica looked at the clock now for the first time since noon and saw that it was midnight. She’d worked twelve hours without even being aware of it.
Delve into your passion, whispered Khoronos’ words.
Veronica felt stunned.
She rubbed her eyes and stretched. Prototypical sketches lay all over her worktable. She pictured herself sitting here all day and night, a blonde oblivione maniacally wearing out one charcoal pencil after the next. The block was gone; Khoronos’ wisdom had inspired her into a creative tempest. At last, Veronica had begun to see her passion.
She examined her work in the bleary lamplight. Most of the sketches failed to convey the eye of her dream. They seemed compressed by structure; she knew the failure at once. True art must never be bound by structure. The dream, the fire-lover, was an image, not a concept. It was up to her to give the image meaning, to release it from structure into aesthetic truth.
Blake and Klimt had advised that the artist must always work until he or she dropped. Faulkner had recommended stopping when the going got good, to protect the creative élan from becoming famished. She tried again, reconstructing the fire-lover on a fresh sheet of Lanaquarelle pH-neutral paper. The figure must make the viewer feel the same impassioned heat that Veronica felt in the dreams. She gave it a new poise and put it further back in the jagged dreamscape, but she still couldn’t quite make it work. She decided, then, that it was time to take Faulkner’s advice.
Hunger gnawed at her belly like a taloned paw. She went immediately down to the dark kitchen and opened the fridge. Someone prepared snacks for them every night — Marzen or Gilles, she guessed. Rolls of smoked Nova salmon, a creamy nougat on tiny bread pieces, and bowls of various spiced kimchi. Veronica ate insatiably.
Then she heard a splash.
It was a tiny sound, a secret. She looked abruptly out the window, then just as abruptly withdrew.
People were in the pool.
Next she carefully cracked the French doors and peeked out. Ginny and Amy Vandersteen, their shed clothes on the pool ledge, backpedaled in the luscious water before two onlookers — Marzen and Gilles. Dressed only in white slacks, they were staring, smiling at Ginny and Amy. Voyeurs, Veronica thought. Like Khoronos. But Khoronos wasn’t with them. A moment later, Marzen and Gilles had stripped too, and were lowering themselves into the pool.
Thanks a lot for inviting me, Veronica thought in complaint.
The four frolicked in the water amid tails of moonlight. Veronica felt something like jealousy bubble up — she felt left out even though skinny dipping wasn’t her style. Amy Vandersteen was giggling like a high school girl as Gilles cornered her and splashed water in her face. Marzen hoisted Ginny up and heaved her headfirst into the deep end. Then the frolic quieted.
Damn!
Veronica wished she could see more. The moonlight reduced them to pale forms in the water; they’d paired off in opposite corners. Amy and Gilles were more visible — they were kissing. The director’s arms wrapped intently about the Frenchman’s muscled neck, hanging on. What burned Veronica more was the certainty that Marzen and Ginny were doing the same thing.
Damn, she thought again. Her breath thinned. Decency told her to leave. This was not what good girls did. Good girls did not spy on people. Go back upstairs, she ordered herself. Go to bed, forget about this. Of course, she didn’t. It was fun, doing something her upbringing had taught her not to do. Just as she thought she’d like to see more, she got her wish. Gilles sat Amy Vandersteen up on the pool ledge. The woman parted her thighs and lay back, paddling her feet languidly in the water as Gilles brought his face between her legs.
Who’s the voyeur now? Veronica thought.
Soon the images conspired: the dark, the quiet yard, moans enlaced with cricket trills. Veronica felt hypnotized. Could Khoronos’ admonishments apply here? He’d told her she must examine herself, to pursue truths of her self-identity. Society would condemn this as voyeuristic, perverse. So why am I doing this?