Alafair Burke: Long Gone

Even though she lived downtown now, she was still in the numbered grid, where streets ran east to west, avenues ran north to south, and the numbers on the grid always showed the way. This morning she was turned around in the tangle of diagonals known as Jane, Washington, Hudson, and Horatio, all labeled streets, yet intersecting with one another in knots.

She pulled out her iPhone and opened up Google Maps. After a right turn past the D’Agostino, she found herself on Bethune and Washington. She recognized the intersection, just one block from the dive Mexican joint that served pitchers of fume-exuding margaritas at sidewalk picnic tables.

Her inner naysayer-that voice in her head that kept warning her that Drew’s offer was indeed too good to be true-tugged at her peripheral vision, forcing her to notice that she’d left the swank of the Meatpacking District and was heading away from the better parts of the West Village. A Chinese restaurant called Baby Buddha was boarded shut on the corner, the words “CLOSED Thanks you for your bussiness” spray-painted across the wood.

Past the boarded-up storefront, across the street, stood a prewar tenement with iron gates securing the lowest three floors of apartment windows. She suspected that if she walked a few more blocks, she’d eventually run into a joint needle-exchange, condom-distribution, check-cashing tattoo parlor. She summoned an image of herself, like Lucy in the Peanuts comic strips, sitting beneath a whittled wood sign bearing the words “Modern Art, 5 Cents.”

But as she passed a closet-sized retail space featuring highbrow clothing for spoiled dogs, her outlook began to brighten. She spotted a For Lease sign in the next front window. She took in the remainder of the block. An independent handbag designer. A UK-based seller of luxury sweatshirts, which people now collectively referred to as “hoodies” to justify the prices. A flower shop. High-end shoe store. A ten-table restaurant run by a former finalist on Top Chef . Not a check-cashing tattoo parlor in sight. She crossed her fingers inside her coat pockets as she squinted at the approaching numerals waiting for her above the unoccupied space.

Jackpot. This was the spot. The address Drew had given her. She pressed her forehead against the front glass, cupping her hands at her temples as she peered into the empty space. The ceilings were at least fifteen feet high. Exposed heating ducts, but in a cool way. Smooth white walls, just waiting for art to be hung. She could picture herself there, wearing one of her better black dresses, gesturing toward oversize canvases that would provide the space’s only color.

She jerked backward as a tap on her shoulder startled her from her daydream. She heard a faint beep-beep as Drew Campbell pressed the clicker in his hand, activating the locks of the silver sedan he’d parked curbside.

“So this is it, huh?”

“You sound disappointed,” he said.

For some reason, people thought Alice was down even at her most enthusiastic. She had a theory that this was somehow attributable to a childhood spent with false hopes. She had been raised by parents who told her at every opportunity that she was better, she eventually realized, than she actually was. They’d had the best intentions, but their unconditional, unrealistic praise had in fact groomed her for disappointment. Having to serve as her own reality check had made Alice her own harshest critic.

Even now, she was incapable of feeling pride or excitement without immediately focusing on all the reasons she would eventually fail. She flashed back briefly to those comments she’d received periodically during her annual evaluations at the Met. Saw those signals she should have picked up on. Tried to push them into her past as Drew Campbell looked at her with impressed, expectant eyes, ready to give her a fresh start.

Drew tapped six digits into the keypad of the lockbox on the front door, and then caught the key that fell from the box. “I haven’t signed the papers yet,” he said. “Figured the gal who’s going to run the place should have final approval.”

As she watched him slip the key into the lock and push the door open, she tried not to draw the metaphorical link to a new chapter opening in her life. She tried not to get her hopes up. She told herself it still might not happen. But already she could picture herself with that same key in her hand, pushing open that very door, making a name for this still-unnamed gallery in the limitless world of art.

“What do you think?”

Admiring the polished white tile floor, Alice tried to play it cool. “It’s small,” she said, “especially if we need space for storage, but it’s intimate, which would be right for this neighborhood. I like that it’s off the beaten path of the usual Chelsea galleries. This area still has a lot of untapped potential.”

“All those fashionistas need art for their luxury apartments, right?” Drew fiddled with a Montblanc pen as he spoke.

“One would hope.”

He slipped a half-inch-thick laptop from a black leather attaché and opened it. “Let’s see if we can’t freeload off a neighbor’s wireless signal. Yep, here we go.” She watched as he maneuvered the cursor. Several windows opened simultaneously on the screen. The images flashed too quickly for her to process, but she caught black-and-white glimpses of exposed flesh, a nail, beads that made her think of a rosary.

“So I was pretty sure you’d be happy with the location, but as I warned you, there are a couple of catches.”

Alice felt herself ground back down into the roots of reality. She heard Lily’s voice-and her own running internal monologue-tugging at her once again. Too good to be true. No such thing as good luck. She tried her best to sound carefree. “So go ahead and break the news to me. There’s a brothel running out of that back room, right? Something niche? Midget transvestites. Am I close?”

“Maybe I’m overselling the negatives, but just hear me out, okay? As far as I’m concerned, there are two little hitches. And, no, that’s not a reference to two tiny cross-dressers. First”-he held up a thumb-“my client has a name for the place. The Highline Gallery.”

“Nowhere neeeaaar the hurdle I was imagining.”

“Boring, though.”

Dickerings about the name of the gallery were small-time compared to the perils she’d been imagining, but the Highline moniker was pretty white-bread, the brand for both the new aboveground park running above Ninth Avenue and an adjacent multilevel concert hall. The Highline was to the Meatpacking District as Clinton was to Hell’s Kitchen-an innocuous, sterile name created by real estate agents to whitewash the dust and blood and scars from a neighborhood’s history.

Drew continued with the disclosures. “As you’re probably wise enough to expect, the second catch is more of a doozie.”

He turned the laptop to face her and wiggled his index finger along the touchpad. The staccato flashes of black-and-white images she’d previously glimpsed reappeared on the screen. “This, Miss Humphrey, is our toupee-covered bald spot, our makeup-covered wart.”

Four separate images popped into view: a man’s hairy thigh with crucifix-shaped welts scratched into his flesh; a fifty-cent plastic doll of the Virgin Mary dangling from a hangman’s noose of cotton fiber; a metal fish-the kind she associated with evangelicals-with hot pink balls dangling from its gut; and a Bible headed into a steel shredder.

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Nice word choice,” Drew said.

“Please don’t tell me this is the work of my silent partner’s paramour.”

“I’m afraid so, dear.”

“It’s like Mapplethorpe-only without the talent.”

Drew shrugged. “Like I said, the man’s a longtime friend, but I realize the wrinkles. No pun intended. If you want to pull out, I wouldn’t blame you in the least.”