Snake Eyes Page 16

  Gina was saying hurriedly, “No, this has nothing to do with that awful man, I’m afraid it’s more serious. You know Julia Sutter of course”—Julia Sutter was the widow of a wealthy Mount Orion philanthropist, a woman in her mid-eighties, who had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Dumont Center since its inception—“well, Julia and some of her women friends are taking a ceramics course at the Center, and they visited the art-therapy studio and were terribly upset by something of Lee Roy’s they saw there—one of the women almost, but not nearly fainted. (Clyde has described the work so graphically, I know I don’t want to see it!) So naturally Julia went to Clyde to complain, and she’s demanding that the work be removed from the Center, she claims it’s obscene, and Clyde went to investigate and he was shocked and disgusted. So he talked to Lee Roy, and Lee Roy refused to cooperate, and—”

  So the comical little tale unfolded. Michael listened, his pulse quickening as if he, and not Lee Roy Sears, had been insulted.

  Wasn’t this just like Clyde Somerset!—to boast of having created a space for troubled men to exorcise their demons through art, and then to take the sides of the philistines who objected to that art. Michael interrupted Gina, asking, “What am I supposed to do, Gina? Does Clyde seriously expect me to talk Lee Roy Sears into being censored?”

  In a bright yet evasive voice, as if her attention had, for a moment, shifted elsewhere, Gina said, “Darling, I don’t know, but you must do something—you must mediate between Clyde and Lee Roy. Clyde is actually threatening to revoke Lee Roy’s residency at the Center! He says that Lee Roy spoke rudely to him and to Julia Sutter, that in fact he has been rude to the Center staff quite a bit lately, that he’s uncooperative in general, and never did listen to Mal Bishop’s accusations. You know, Lee Roy does have a temper sometimes, like a child. But of course Clyde is probably exaggerating—”

  In the background as Gina spoke there was a wash of sound, surflike, blurred, as of many voices, punctuated by higher-pitched noises like metal clanging against metal. It was unlike Gina to have a television set on during the day, and if Marita was cleaning house, Gina would hardly be making a confidential call within her earshot. Or had Joel and Kenny brought classmates home to play?

  Michael finally asked, “Gina, what’s going on there? Why is it so noisy?”

  There was a moment’s pause, then Gina said, “I’m not at home, I’m calling from a hotel.”

  “A hotel?”

  “I mean, a hotel lobby. I’ve been having a lunch at the Hyatt”—as if, under these rushed circumstances, Gina had not time to substitute another place, a restaurant or a club, closer to home. (The luxurious new Hyatt-Regency was eleven miles away, in the suburb of Green Ridge, New Jersey.)

  Michael said, puzzled, “But I thought Clyde called you.”

  Gina said, at once defensive, “He did. He had me paged. Is this a cross-examination, darling?”

  Had he more time, and had he been able to think more clearly, Michael O’Meara might have pondered this curiosity, that Clyde Somerset, wanting to speak with Gina, should somehow know to have her publicly paged at the Hyatt; unless—was this more likely?—he’d had his staff place calls at any number of area restaurants and hotels, with the assumption that, on a weekday, Gina would be lunching in one of them.

  And with whom?

  But Michael never gave this another thought, for, hanging up the phone with a promise of hurrying to the Dumont Center, to set things straight between Clyde and Lee Roy Sears, he had so much else to think of. A wave of sickish apprehension, dread, excitement swept over him. Philistines. Enemies. Insult.

  Afterward, he would grimly recall this day, the start of the trouble: Friday, October 18, his eye catching the date on a calendar as if to memorialize it. He would not have wished to think that perhaps the trouble had started years ago, on that bright May morning in 1983 when, at the hearing at Hunsford, he’d first laid eyes on Lee Roy Sears.

  In his office, Michael poured himself a quick drink, an inch of Scotch in a tumbler; he swallowed down a tranquilizer—the small, pale green pill Liloprane.

  Told his secretary he had to hurry home on a domestic matter—“almost, but not quite, an emergency”—but that he expected to be back in the office within ninety minutes. (It was now 2:50 P.M.)

  Got into his Mazda and drove. Back to Mount Orion.

  Calming somewhat, on the Parkway, as the Scotch and the Liloprane, warmly meshing, coursed along his veins with a soothing hum.

  (It should be noted that Michael O’Meara rarely took drugs. He was one of those Americans who stoically refuse even aspirin. Most of the time.)

  (It should be noted that, strictly speaking, he had no prescription for Liloprane, but, as one of Pearce Pharmaceutical’s most profitable psychoactive drugs, it was readily available at Michael’s office. What harm, a single pill?—under these trying circumstances?)

  (In any case, the mild tinge of guilt he felt at taking the Liloprane, and the Scotch, was almost immediately assuaged by the Liloprane, and the Scotch. For such was the purpose of the Liloprane, and the Scotch.)

  For the past six weeks, it seemed that Michael O’Meara had been working even harder than usual for Pearce, Inc. The $10 million malpractice suit had been settled in Pearce’s favor; but, only the previous week, preliminary papers had been served against the company by the family of a Memphis factory worker, who, under treatment for depression with Pearce’s anti-depressant Peverol, had gone berserk and killed seven people, including himself, with an AK-47 assault rifle. Lawyers for the dead man’s family were arguing that Peverol, popularly billed as a “wonder drug” in the cure of depression, in fact triggered, in certain individuals, mania, obsession with suicide, and violent behavior … This time, Pearce, Inc., was being sued for $50 million in punitive and compensatory damages.

  Unfortunately, the Memphis coroner’s report concluded that drugs the dead man had been taking at the time, including, but not restricted to, Peverol, may have influenced his behavior. Thus, to refute this allegation, Michael O’Meara and his team of lawyers would proceed by—

  “But why am I thinking of that now?—now isn’t the time, surely!”

  He was driving along the Garden State Parkway, on his almost too-familiar route, fifteen miles above the speed limit, yet with his customary skill and tact. The alteration of his brain’s chemistry had been minimal, and entirely to the good. Though he saw that he’d been gripping the steering wheel so tightly, his fingers were white, like bone.

  An artist. Art is his calling.

  If he’s born too soon he won’t last.

  Thankfully, Janet O’Meara’s television interview with Lee Roy Sears had turned out quite respectably—admirably, in fact. For some reason the network had delayed its broadcast until August, and scheduled it for a Sunday at noon, but the O’Mearas had seen it at their summer place on Cape Cod, at their rented summer place. (Joel and Kenny had seen it too, greatly excited watching their friend Mr. Sears on television.) As Michael had supposed, the controversial footage had been edited out. Lee Roy’s intemperate outburst might never have occurred, and most of the conversation between him and Janet was briskly upbeat, and blandly general. (“Do you think that art is a good, healthy, normal outlet for all men and women, not just those who have suffered traumas?” Janet had asked, and Lee Roy had nodded vaguely, then more emphatically, like a trained dog, baring his crooked teeth.) The coverage of the veterans’ art was brief and perfunctory, which was probably just as well. Clyde Somerset had been pleased with the publicity: “very pleased” with the publicity.

  What worried Michael was that, in the months since, Janet had returned several times to Mount Orion, for the ostensible purpose of writing a freelance article, a “print piece,” as she called it, on Lee Roy Sears. She hadn’t been at all satisfied with the interview—television, she lamented, is so limited. Twice, she had stayed with the O’Mearas, but she’d been in Mount Orion once or twice more without so much as calling them. Was she in
terviewing Lee Roy at length?—was she researching his past? The prospect left Michael uneasy.

  Gina said slyly, “If I didn’t know your sister, and respect her intelligence, I’d almost think she was pursuing Lee Roy.”

  “Pursuing? How?” Michael asked, appalled.

  Gina merely smiled. “If I didn’t know her.”

  The last time they’d spoken together, Michael and Janet had nearly quarreled over the issue of Janet’s having lent Lee Roy money. Michael strongly advised against it—“Being in prison so many years has made him dependent, he has to become independent.” Michael did not mention that, in all, between the two of them, he and Gina had “lent” Lee Roy hundreds of dollars, which it was unlikely he’d be able to pay back in the near future. Janet said defensively, “I’m not lending Lee Roy Sears money, still less am I giving it. Lee Roy Sears isn’t a man to accept charity. What I’m doing is investing in his future as an artist.” Janet, for all her native shrewdness, seemed somehow convinced that a New York gallery was going to represent Lee Roy Sears’s work soon, and that his career as a new American artist would be launched.

  Not that Michael O’Meara did not believe in his friend’s talent, but—!

  This fantasy of a New York gallery, and all it promised of fame, money—Michael knew to trace back to Valeria Darrell, who had tirelessly pursued Lee Roy Sears over the summer. She claimed that she was “mesmerized” by him, but she denied any “romantic attachment” to him—the man was an ex-convict, after all. All of Mount Orion pondered: were the two lovers?—did Lee Roy Sears reciprocate the older woman’s interest?—or was Valeria simply being kind, including Sears in her highly active, and not highly discriminatory, social life? Or was all of this rumor, without foundation? Lee Roy was gentlemanly, or guarded, in speaking of Valeria; in fact, he never spoke of her unless, obliquely, taking care to show not the slightest sign of jealousy or disapproval (for in truth he felt neither), Michael inquired after Lee Roy’s “other” Mount Orion friends. Gina simply refused to inquire.

  She was jealous, and she was disapproving. Though Lee Roy Sears was clearly in awe of her, often tongue-tied in her presence, she was not placated. “I will never forgive Valeria for stealing Lee Roy away that night,” Gina said, with an angry little smile, “and Valeria well knows it.”

  As for Lee Roy himself, Gina had forgiven him long ago. He was naive, and he was a man; he could not be expected to understand the protocol of Mount Orion social life. “He stands,” Gina said thoughtfully, “outside the Caucasian race.”

  “The madman has barricaded himself in the studio, and refuses to talk to anyone!—he thinks I’m going to have him forcibly ejected. Did Gina tell you?”

  Clyde Somerset was speaking loudly, and angrily, as if Michael O’Meara was to blame; Michael, astonished, had never seen the older man so agitated, and seemingly at a loss. Beside him, stiff and self-conscious, grim, irresolute, stood the Dumont Center’s sole security guard, a gray-haired man in his mid-fifties, smartly uniformed but unarmed.

  “Gina told me something of the—circumstances.”

  “About Julia Sutter?—and Marian Parrish?—poor Mrs. Parrish nearly had a heart attack, I do mean an actual heart attack, when she realized what it was she was looking at, in the studio. Her eyes aren’t good—she had to get up close. I had no idea what he was up to, damn him! Utterly revolting—disgusting—obscene things!”

  “His—clay figures, do you mean? What are they?”

  “The ‘art’ is obscene by Mount Orion community standards, and it’s obscene by my standards. Sears knows this, certainly—his kind of ‘artist’ knows exactly what he’s doing. Of course, I tried to explain to Julia that this was new work, and it wasn’t on exhibit, it isn’t in a public place, but Julia said, and of course she’s right, that Sears is on the staff here; he’s our ‘artist-in-residence’; his studio is on our premises, and he works with supplies we buy. His stipend for the twelve-week course he’s teaching is five thousand dollars, which is very generous, by anyone’s standards!”

  “You say Lee Roy is barricaded in the studio?”

  “Yes, and I’ve told him I will call the police if he doesn’t open the door. I’ve warned him! I will! I don’t give a damn about the publicity, if the safety of my staff is threatened!”

  Clyde Somerset’s normally affable, ruddy face was heavy with blood; his eyes were faintly bloodshot; his impeccably tailored three-piece suit, with its British affectations, looked rumpled. The Dumont Center itself, this splendid postmodernist building with its vaulted glass-and-aluminum ceiling, its open lobby, spotless marble floor, had about it this afternoon a jarred, dazed air, as if it had been taken up, violently shaken, and set down again. But how was there any threat? A few visitors were walking through the first-floor exhibit, “Autumnal Visions by the New Jersey Watercolorists Society”—the exhibit itself looked quaint and almost comically incongruous, in the light of Clyde Somerset’s intensity.

  Michael said, calmly, “Clyde, I seriously doubt that anyone’s safety is threatened. Why don’t we go downstairs? I’ll see if he will listen to me.”

  Michael felt a tinge of pleasure: taking charge: assuming responsibility: as he’d felt, so many years ago, in the dissection lab in medical school.

  The three men went downstairs, Michael O’Meara in the lead. Clyde said, less vehemently, “I suppose the man is simply a bit—rattled. When I went to speak with him, Julia insisted upon coming along; she was excitable, as women of her age who are used to having their own way can be. Accusing Sears of ‘misogyny’—as if he’d be likely to know what the word is!” Clyde laughed, and dabbed at his face with a monogrammed handkerchief. “I spoke quite reasonably with Sears, I thought, suggesting that he simply remove the new work from our premises, take it home with him, wherever. But he turned stubborn. Wasn’t even embarrassed about this trash of his. The way, you know, he hadn’t been embarrassed by seeming to have plagiarized from what-was-his-name—that pathetic man in the wheelchair. No, your Lee Roy Sears can’t be embarrassed, I’d say!—or shamed!”

  Michael said, “But Lee Roy hadn’t plagiarized—that was just Mal Bishop’s accusation. There was never any proof.”

  Clyde said carelessly, “Oh, hell—that’s what they all say.”

  “What who says?”

  “Plagiarists. Thieves.”

  “But why take Bishop’s word over Sears’s?—Lee Roy told me, Bishop had stolen from him.”

  “Well, naturally,” Clyde said, with a spiteful laugh, “that’s what he would tell you; that’s what you would want to hear.”

  Michael, offended, had not time to pursue this subject, for they were at the door to the studio, in a fluorescent-lit corridor with a distinctly subterranean air. The security guard immediately pressed his back against the wall, arms outstretched, in a posture of naive vigilance, as he had perhaps seen television policeman do, in similar circumstances; Michael simply knocked on the door. “Lee Roy?—it’s me, Michael.” He tried the doorknob. “Will you let me in, please?”

  There was no sound from inside.

  Michael knocked again, not hard, but firmly; spoke as before, in a slightly raised voice. The thought struck him, with a pang of horror, that Lee Roy, in a sudden panic, overwhelmed by circumstances he could not control, might have killed himself.

  Of all things Lee Roy Sears most feared being sent back to prison—he’d told Michael and Gina that he would rather die.

  He’d told them too, the other evening, speaking boastfully, a bit wildly, that he would die for what he believed in—now he had something to believe in.

  “Lee Roy?—it’s Michael. Please unlock the door.”

  There was a long pause; Clyde began to speak, but Michael signaled him to be still; then came the sound of the door being unlocked.

  Michael pushed the door open—of course, there was no barricade.

  The studio’s overhead lights were off, but waning light came through the long horizontal window that ran the length of a wall
, near the ceiling. Lee Roy Sears was quickly limping away, to a corner of the room, as a shamed child might, hiding his face from Michael.

  Clyde Somerset and the security guard remained in the corridor, and Michael went inside, partly closing the door behind him. He greeted Lee Roy warmly, yet cautiously. “Thanks for opening the door, Lee Roy. How are you?”

  Lee Roy, his back to Michael, now squatting, made no reply that Michael could hear.

  “Clyde has told me there’s been a misunderstanding? I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be cleared up.”

  Again, no reply.

  Michael approached Lee Roy, slowly. He wasn’t afraid of his friend but he was fearful of further disturbing him—he could tell, by a rank, animal odor in the air, and by the other man’s pronounced breathing, that Lee Roy was in an extreme emotional state.

  “Lee Roy?—I’m sure it’s nothing that can’t be cleared up.”

  Lee Roy was squatting on his heels, his back to Michael. He appeared to be contemplating, or guarding, a number of clay figures scattered on a ragged newspaper at the base of the wall. In the half-light, Michael could not make out details, but he recognized Sears’s characteristic work. Humanoid figures in odd postures, the largest about eight inches long. And other, smaller objects.

  Squatting as he was, his legs and thighs straining, Lee Roy was trembling; quivering; like a vibrating mechanism. His breath was rasping and erratic, as if he were climbing a flight of stairs, or lifting a heavy weight. His hair had grown shaggy, and greasy, but, with his head bowed and chin creased against his chest, the back of his neck was exposed, and Michael could see how thick it had grown—how muscular. And his arms, and shoulders, straining too inside his white shirt! The gangling, emaciated-looking Lee Roy Sears whom Michael O’Meara had first known was gone—where?

  As Gina had said, the other night, in bed, as if reading Michael’s thoughts, “I hope we don’t lose him.” Michael had not needed to ask Gina of whom she spoke.