Chapter Seven
When he came home late one Friday in March, Arabella was gone and the place felt empty. Annoyed, he made a Manhattan in the kitchen and then walked into the living room. Something was wrong there too; it took him a minute to realize that the metal sculpture of the woman and dog, bought on that goddamned trip to Connors, was gone. It had sat beside Arabella’s green Korean chest since November. He had become fond of it, had bought a bottle of chrome bumper cleaner and shined it up. Originally, even five hundred seemed too much for the thing, but he had come to be proud of owning it. He looked now in the other rooms of the apartment, but it wasn’t there.
He was making his second drink when he heard Arabella come in and hang her coat in the hall closet. “Where in hell’s my statue?” he shouted.
“Take it easy.” She came into the kitchen. “Fix me one of those and I’ll tell you.” Her face was flushed and her eyes bright.
He added more whiskey and vermouth to the pitcher and poured two drinks. “Let’s hear it.”
“I sold her.”
“What the hell? That was my statue.”
“It was a gift for me.”
“Maybe. How much did you get?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. Do you remember Quincy Foreman?”
Eddie thought he remembered. An English professor, built like a linebacker. “How much did he give you?”
“Eddie, there’s a lot of money in things like that.”
She was wearing a corduroy skirt with pockets. She reached into one of these and pulled out a folded-over check. She unfolded it, glanced at it to make sure and then looked at Eddie.
“Damn it,” Eddie said, “let me see the check.”
She held it out. He took it and looked. It was made out on the Central Bank for twelve hundred and fifty dollars.
“I tried for fourteen,” she said.
“My my,” Eddie said. He was holding his drink in one hand and the check in the other. He set the drink down. “If we leave early in the morning we can get there by lunchtime.”
“Get where?”
“Deeley Marcum’s junkyard.”
She was looking at him in frank surprise. “To buy another piece?”
“To buy three pieces,” Eddie said. “Four, if we can get them for twelve fifty.”
After stopping at the bank for Arabella to cash the check, Eddie drove out the Nicholasville Pike. “I’ll carry the money,” he said, and she handed the bills to him. Twelve hundreds and a fifty. He folded them over and stuffed them into his pocket, not taking his eyes from the road.
In Delfield he stopped at the A&P for a six-pack of Molson’s, then headed straight for the junkyard. It was a quarter to twelve when they pulled up.
He had decided what pieces he wanted before going to bed the night before. There were two short women that would fit in the trunk of the car and two that could go in back—one on the seat and one on the floor. Size wasn’t his only consideration; there was also weight. And he was fairly sure he knew which ones were better-looking than the others.
There was another woman with a dog, standing just where his had stood. The old man had taken his suggestion. Eddie stopped to look at it a moment, noticing that the welds were better than on the first. Then he took the beers back to Marcum’s shack.
This time Arabella tried to stay out of it while he dealt with Deeley—who, apparently, had just gotten out of bed. The old man washed his face at a dirty sink that sat next to his welding equipment, dried off with a handful of paper towels and took a beer from Eddie without thanking him. He took a long draw from the bottle, holding his head back and chugalugging, and wiped his mouth off with his forearm. He blinked at Arabella, ignoring Eddie. “I got a Heliarc coming down from Louisville,” he said.
“Terrific!” Arabella said.
“They say it’s a beauty. I’ll wait till I see it.”
Eddie said nothing, opening himself a beer and taking a drink. It was a raw February day and it seemed strange to be drinking cold beer.
Finally Deeley deigned to notice him. “How do you like that woman and dog? I mean the one you bought?”
Eddie looked at him. “The dog could be better, but it’s all right. It should have had more balls.”
Marcum raised his eyebrows slightly. “The dog was hard to do,” he said. “I’ve got more experience with women.”
“Get yourself a dog,” Eddie said, “if you’re going to do dogs.”
“A dog’s more trouble than a woman.”
“Sometimes it’s trouble just to get out of bed.”
Marcum stared at him a moment and then he began to laugh. He looked at Arabella. “Stay with this one,” he said. “He knows a thing or two.”
“I’d like to buy four more,” Eddie said.
Marcum blinked. “Four?”
“Four more of your women. I’ll show you.” He led Marcum out into the yard and pointed out the ones he wanted: the Las Vegas Model, the Statue of Liberty, Little Bo Peep, and a cartoonlike one called Olive Oyl. When they came to this one, Eddie said, “I’ll give you a thousand for all four.”
Marcum stared at him. “I can’t do that.”
“I’m going to finish my beer,” Eddie said. He had left it in the shed. He turned and began walking that way.
Marcum followed him silently, and when Eddie was drinking from the bottle he said, “Why do you want four?”
Eddie said nothing.
“Some people want to buy one of them, but when I tell what I expect to get, they get nervous. But nobody wanted four before.”
“We’re going to try selling them.”
“Shit!” Marcum said. “I thought you were up to something. I’m the one ought to be selling them to people, not you.”
Eddie shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.”
“You’re goddamn fucking correct I’m right.”
“Who would you sell them to?”
“Rich people in Louisville,” Marcum said. “Museums and galleries.”
“Is that so?”
“Original works like these don’t come cheap.” Marcum, still holding his empty beer bottle, gestured grandly toward his yardful of metal women.
“How will you get those rich people in Louisville to come here and buy?” Eddie said.
“I’ll go to them.”
“From door to door?”
“I’ll sell them to a gallery, if I sell them.”
“A gallery won’t pay you as much as I will. They’ve got to make their profit and pay their overhead. You’ll have to get a truck to take them to Louisville.”
Marcum’s face had developed a pout. “If I sell them, I won’t have anything here to show people. That’s my livelihood, charging admission.”
“One dollar,” Eddie said, looking out at the yard. “I’ve been here twice and nobody’s come in while I’ve been here.”
“They come in,” Marcum said. “Sometimes whole families at a dollar apiece. And I charge another dollar to take pictures.”
“Then you’re doing all right.”
“I’ve never touched a welfare check or a food stamp in my life.”
“That’s a good thing,” Eddie said. “A man ought to be independent if he’s got a talent.”
“In spades, Mister.”
“I appreciate how you feel,” Eddie said. He reached down into his pocket and took out the folded stack of hundred-dollar bills, most of them new, and began counting them silently. He put the fifty into his jacket pocket, set the stack of twelve hundreds on the metal-topped table beside them and put a chunk of scrap metal on top of it to keep the bills from blowing off. “This is my last offer,” Eddie said.