Carol O’Connell - Killing Critics

“Vandalism of priceless art? Yes. There’s a more interesting show in the next room.” He took her arm and guided her into the adjoining gallery space.

“At least it doesn’t smell,” said Mallory, counting the spilled garbage cans. There were twelve in all, contents strewn about the floor. He led her down a clear passage, sans garbage, saying, “I want you to know that the garbage was authentically spilled, and not purposefully arranged this way. The artist is a purist. He has integrity.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Yes, but it’s also true.”

Other people stood in ones and pairs, inspecting garbage spills. One young man, wearing the art student’s slashed-at-the-knee-for-no-good-reason blue jeans, was standing in the corner making notes on the half-eaten guacamole which he had found in the garbage spill that he was fondest of.

“So why doesn’t it smell?” she asked.

“The gallery owner thought it might put off the paying customers. It’s coated with resin. The artist didn’t like that. He wanted it to rot naturally.”

“Naturally-he’s a purist.”

“Now you’ve got it, Mallory.”

“And that show in the front room, the vandalism?”

“All the statues are from the Greek collection of a major museum, and they don’t want to encourage any more of this. The museum director gave me a ‘No comment,’ but I noted all the statues had been removed. When they go on display again, there won’t be any trace of the damage.”

“I bet they bought out the show.”

He nodded. “You’re right, they did. This show will close as soon as their check clears the bank. They were very good-natured mugging victims. Rumor has it they ransomed the negatives, too.”

“I just can’t believe this,” she said.

“New York City. What’s not to believe?”

Twenty minutes later, Quinn was sipping espresso under the green awning of a sidewalk cafe on Bleecker Street and ferreting out Mallory’s tastes in art. It seemed she only liked minimalism, and only because it was neat and clean, not cluttered with tony metaphors and messy paints. She had no use for any extraneous line or shape.

When she was done, he said, “Well then, why not take a blue pencil to James Joyce, edit out all the extraneous stuff that doesn’t really further the plot? Most people don’t understand the metaphors anyway. So we could probably whittle Ulysses down to a manageable short story.”

He was smiling now, because she was smiling, and he was helpless to do otherwise. He wondered where she had learned that beguiling trick. An old memory brought him up short, as he realized she was perfectly mimicking the smile of the late Louis Markowitz. He was startled, but also confident that it did not show.

He continued as though nothing had happened, as though he had not just seen a ghost. “And then we’ll have literature that’s more accessible to a thirteen-year-old subnormal. Why make people reach for art, when they can pick it up off the floor?”

Her hand went up to say, Enough, I get the point . He went on anyway. And so began Mallory’s first lecture on the other language, the metaphor of subject, the symbolism of object, the poetry evoked by color and shape, by texture and line, what was said by the immediacy of a single violent stroke of a brush or the subtle shading of a pencil.

And then she asked, “So where’s my metaphor in the garbage and the vandalism?”

“All right, you win.” He sensed that winning was the main thing with her, the very key to her. “You’re still planning on attending the ball tomorrow night?”

“Yes, and I still need an interview with Gregor Gilette. You’ve got that covered, right? He’ll keep it quiet?”

He smiled and let her take that for a positive response. “But you must let me help you with something else. The opening for the next Dean Starr show is by invitation only. I could have Koozeman invite you.”

“I don’t need an invitation-I’m the police. Riker says you weren’t planning to review the first Dean Starr show. So I have to wonder why you were there that night.”

Like Riker, she had saved her best cut for last. Her style, however, was a departure from her partner’s-not a blunt and clumsy accusation, but a trap. She only stared at him now, defying him to lie to her and try to get away with it.

“Riker was right, I never review hacks. A bad review is counterproductive. Repetition of the name is fame in New York City. I only went to the opening for the food and wine. It’s so rare to find hors d’oeuvres served in galleries anymore.”

“Seriously.”

“Seriously, Mallory, you can hardly believe I went there to appreciate art.”

The woman ceased to drag her rolling wire cart, which was partially covered by a tarp. Tired, she leaned on the cart handle as she watched the art critic leaving the Bleecker Street cafe with the young blond woman. Quinn held open the door of a small tan car. The young woman disappeared into it and drove off. Now he crossed Bleecker Street and approached the woman with the wire cart. He looked into her eyes, where it was winter of weak iris skies and clouding cataracts. He nodded to her, and a bit of paper passed from his hand to hers as he passed her by.

Her palsied hand jolted the cart. Trembling fingers pulled back the tarp as the woman peered inside it, eyes fixing on a tea tin, believing she had heard a thought. Snow drifted through her mind and she lost the threads to where she was and why she was. The dead child’s brains gently remembered for her. “Move on,” urged the voice from the tin. The woman nodded and moved on down Bleecker Street.

She seemed a collection of things found and put together. Her four skirts were a concert, whispers of dead leaves shushing along toward Lafayette and turning south on that street. Her head of iron-gray hair wobbled on a slender bird’s neck. She crossed wide Houston with her free hand tucked in, giving one arm the appearance of a useless wing, atrophied or broken.

She tripped on the curb and lurched suddenly, upsetting the cart. The tea tin went tumbling as the cart settled in a gutter. The tin was rearranged among the other contents layered over and around it. A crusted knapsack spilled a shiny stream of bottle caps, broken pins, tin silverware and other small found things-pretty only, good for nothing.

The woman righted her cart and veered east on Houston. Forgetting, minutes later, that the dead child’s brains had ever spoken, she turned a corner onto Essex Street. Trash cans seemed to grow there in abundance. She looked over her newfound wealth with the eye of a connoisseur. A flash of metal caught her eye with a ricochet of sunlight. There, on one trash can, was a knife. It was crack-toothed and broken-handled, but still good for cutting meat. She stared at it until the voice from the tea tin cautioned, “Forget.”

But the mad persistence of memory won out. She began to shake. A cold miasma of fear settled about her shoulders and forced her to her knees and to ground. She clawed at her hair, eyes bulging at what memory was showing her, sobbing, shuddering, screaming, screams quieting now to moans as the dead child’s brains called up the blessed snow of forgetfulness.

Emma Sue Hollaran was sedated when her body was being transferred to the operating table. The nurse partially draped her in a green sheet. Her exposed legs were marked in sections with black crayon lines like the diagram of a cow in a butcher shop.

Her eyes slowly roved the small operating theater and the familiar gowned figures of the surgeon and the nurse. Another familiar person was the anesthesiologist. Since this man spoke not one word of English, she was certain that he was not certified to practice medicine in this country. So she could assume he worked cheap, and she never complained.