Harmony In Flesh and Black Read Free

large birds in his place, buzzards that hunched back out of sight when he opened his door at the sound of Fred’s step on the landing.
    Smykal was about Fred’s height but noticeably older, maybe the same weight. Fred’s weight was muscle, though, in back and shoulders. Smykal was thin on top and heavy below, a pear past its time and settling. His color was waxy gray, with a blue cast reflected from the suit he had been wearing day and night for years, since he found it at the back door of a funeral home. Smykal had taken special pains to trim the native hair on the face of a head and body that otherwise were redolent of intimate personal neglect. He sported a nasty ingrown off-white goatee and a sparse mustache curled upward at the ends and stained with tobacco. He put a twisted mini black cigar into the middle of it, stared at Fred, and puffed.
    â€œI’ve come for the painting,” Fred said.
    Smykal flinched. People often flinched the first time they saw Fred. He was large and had a face that made people remember things they wanted to forget.
    â€œArthurian sent me.”
    â€œCome in,” Smykal said, leading the way and sniffing—an act Fred would avoid if he could, here. Inside, the smell was worse: Smykal’s cigars and what Fred thought was male cat, though he didn’t see the cat.
    The room Smykal led Fred into, a sitting room, was overstuffed with Victoriana: furniture and bookcases filled with magazines, books, and whatnot. Heaps of magazines and papers lay on the floor. Dust was thick over all. But what you noticed were the walls, which blared with black-and-white photographs lovingly framed. Apparently abstract, they quickly resolved into close-ups of selected portions of human female bodies. They looked hung out to dry: something to feed the buzzards. The pubic region especially seemed to command Smykal’s attention. The feel and odor of the air alone were enough to account for Clayton’s unease; it was not, overall, his kind of place.
    â€œPlease,” Smykal said, motioning toward a chair. “Make yourself at home. I was about to indulge my taste for sherry. You will join me?”
    Fred shook his head, standing. He didn’t want to put anything in his mouth here. “I can’t stay. I’d like to take the painting. I’m pressed for time.”
    â€œI assured Mr. Arthurian that with an eye such as his, he must have talent.” He sniffed. It wasn’t just the dust, and fungus, and filth, and cigar smoke. It was nose candy working, eating into the septum. “I thought he might return himself. I teach, as well as being a creative person in my own right,” Smykal said, gesturing toward the walls.
    The photos of female crotches were Smykal’s own work, then, which he justified as art. A pile of it cackled on the floor when Fred brushed against it by accident, as if the man’s buzzards were sharing a private joke in poor taste.
    The cigar trembled in Smykal’s face.
    â€œI offered him my standard arrangement,” Smykal said. “I provide camera, studio time, instruction, models, everything. Everything is in-house, even my darkroom. Total, total privacy. Such a good eye he has, I was impressed. Amid all this he spotted the painting right away. I sensed his native talent. Like many, he is shy of his indwelling potential. I’ll telephone him. I mislaid his number.”
    Fred thought to himself, Clay, I forgive you, if the painting’s any good. The man, the place, the circumstances were so appalling, anyone could allow intrigue to replace good sense.
    â€œHe’ll be in touch himself,” Fred said. “When he is ready.”
    Smykal sniffed. The blue suit was almost shiny enough to reflect his pitted face.
    Fred said, “I’m in a hurry.”
    â€œAnother time, then,” Smykal said. “For the sherry. Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. I’m wrapping it in the studio. Would you care