Artist's Proof Read Free Page A

South Carolina. I told her she could go down there and finish school; or, if she preferred, I would run her in. I put her on the bus myself the next day. My partner didn’t approve—he didn’t approve of blacks in general—but I didn’t approve of everything he was up to, and our code was to keep our mouths shut about what the other one did.
    The next time Gayle and I met, years later, she was the live-in girlfriend of a painter I knew and earning a decent living as a dress model on Seventh Avenue. I wouldn’t have recognized her but she remembered me, “the Jewish cop with a heart of chopped liver.” She whooped a greeting and hugged me tightly. In addition to a certain savvy she had gained a shitload of confidence. She knew who she was.
    We kept vaguely in touch, mostly through her boyfriend. When she eventually dumped him she decided to strike out on a path that would give her a measure of freedom from both employers and men. She had evolved into a no-hips, long-waisted stunner with legs to her belly button, velvety brown skin, enormous eyes, and auburn hair out of left field. She dressed mostly in clothes of her own design, and friends had been urging her to turn the talent to money.
    Was it a talent? Gayle would have drawn applause dressed in twin pillowcases. The question was, Could she do for women who ground their teeth in jealousy when she sashayed by what she had done for herself? Probably yes, but it would take another season or two before they trusted her.
    In advance of the tourist season she was paying off her barter debt by giving me two mornings a week—helping me organize the place and sitting for an easel portrait. I hated doing academic painting; fortunately, I could never be truly academic. But I knew as well as Lonnie Morgenstern that I was unlikely to sell Large. Gayle in a green caftan against a bare wood wall might be marketable—especially since, for insurance, one of her long, perfectly shaped legs was exposed, like a smooth-flowing river, all the way to its source. I was calling the thing Green and Brown Morning. A working title.
    Months before, when we first got together on our two projects, I had hopes that the same thought would enter Gayle’s head that had crept into mine: Wouldn’t it be lovely to hop in the sack with this person? I sensed that the needle on her sex-awareness meter did jump once or twice in response to me before it settled down at zero.
    By then, so had mine. The choice was between a brief, passionate fling that might come to a sour end, and a long friendship. I valued the possibilities in the friendship. Maybe she had gone through the same reasoning. It had been more than a year since there had been a woman in my life, but I told myself that was by choice; it allowed me to focus on my work.
    *   *   *
    G AYLE AND I put in a productive couple of hours on Green and Brown Morning. The canvas was turning out even slicker than I had intended. Sometimes you have to bend with the prevailing winds—in this case the monstrous college tuition bill that loomed before me.
    It wasn’t until Gayle left at about noon that I remembered the message from Chuck Scully on my answering machine. I called the police station in the village hall and got the civilian clerk who doubled at the switchboard, a retired schoolteacher I knew only as Helen. She said, “Yes, Mr. Shale, Chief Scully did want to talk to you, but he’s not here.” She sounded distraught. “He went out. I’m really sorry.”
    â€œOkay, no problem. Just tell him I’m returning his call.”
    â€œI’ll tell him when I see him, but I have no idea when that will be. Really no idea at all.”
    She was breathless; something was up. There had been a rash of bicycle thefts in the area (at least four); maybe Chuck was following a hot lead.
    â€œIs he out on a case?” I asked.
    â€œI’m not authorized to talk about