Each major piece of art in that tidy room was shocking. There was a curious clinical horror about it, a non-functional chill. I had the odd feeling that walking into this room was precisely like walking into Cal Tomberlin’s mind. I glanced at Connie. Her eyes were narrow and her rich mouth compressed.
He showed us the cases of ancient instruments of torture and ecstasy. He turned a ground glass easel on, took large Ektachrome transparencies from a safe file and showed us a few of them, saying, “These are studies of the Indian temple carvings at Konarak and Khajuarho, showing the erotic procedures which were always a part of the Hindu religion.”
He put them away and said, “Beyond here we have the special library of books and films, a small projection room and a small photo lab. A recent project has been to duplicate the Konarak carvings, using amateur actors and period costuming. Stills, of course.”
“A project?” Connie said. “Really Cal! You make your own diseases sound so terribly earnest.”
He looked at her blandly. “Connie, my dear, any time you wish to lend your considerable talent to any of these little projects…”
“I would look a bit out of place among your poor hopped-up little actors and actresses, darling.”
“You are wonderfully well preserved, Connie.”
I wandered over to the side wall. The individual niches were lighted. I had counted one area of thirty-four of them. The gold statues were behind glass.
“Are these real gold, Mr. Tomberlin?”
He came up behind me. “Yes. I recently had more space made for these. Most of these were a recent acquisition. As you can see, many of them do not fit in with… with the general theme of the entire collection. But I decided not to break the collection up. Strange and handsome, aren’t they?”
I moved over and got a close look at the squatty little man. Borlika Galleries had sold him to Carlos Menterez y Cruzada. Carlos had taken him from New York to Havana to Puerto Altamura. Sam Taggart had taken him from Mexico to California to Florida. He had unwrapped him there and shown him to me. And somebody had come and taken him back to California. Now I had traced him down, and I imagined I could see an ancient sour recognition in his little eyes.
“Where would you go to buy stuff like this?” I asked.
“I purchased a collection, Mr. Smith. I haven’t had them properly identified and catalogued as yet.” He was bored. He had no interest in my reaction. He turned to Connie and said, “Would you like to see a new film, dear? It’s Swedish, and quite extraordinary.”
She shivered. “Thank you, no. Once was enough for all time. Show it to Rhoda, darling. She adores that sort of thing. Thank you for the guided tour. Let’s all get back to the people, shall we?”
After we were alone again, she shivered again and said, “That’s pretty snaky in there, isn’t it?”
“He’s a strange man.”
She pulled me into a corner and put her hands on my shoulders. “Is it those gold things, dear?”
“Was I that obvious?”
“Not really. But it would be nice if it were those gold statues. He was so delighted to get them. He’s had them only a few months. He must have made a very good deal. He kept chuckling and beaming. But, darling, it would be quite a project. That room is like a big safe. This place is alive with people at all hours. And I think he has burglar alarms.”
“It presents a few little problems.”
“Including the police.”
“No. They wouldn’t come into it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“They’re not his. Twenty-eight of them aren’t.”
She looked amused and astonished. “Now don’t tell me he stole them!”
“He sort of intercepted them after they’d been stolen.”
“It’s very confusing, my dear. And you are… employed by someone?”
“Paul told you about asking questions.”
“I remember something about that. Don’t you trust me, my dear?”
“Implicitly, totally, without reservation, Constancia. But if you don’t have any answers, you can’t answer any questions.”
“Will people ask me questions?”
“Probably not.”
“Darling, do as you wish. I am the middle one of five daughters in a very political family, and we were all born to intrigue.”
“The idea of there being five of you is a little disconcerting.”
“Don’t be alarmed. The other four are little satin pillows, surrounded with children. I am twenty-one times an aunt. Tia Constancia.” She hooked a strong hand around the nape of my neck. “Be kissed by an aunt,” she said. It was quick and pungent and most competent. And loaded with challenge.
“I think there’d be a nice place for me, just to the left of the lion.”
“I would be more concerned about what your trophy room looks like, Mack Smith.”
“It’s very dull. You see, I don’t go after the record heads. In fact, I don’t go after anything at all. I’m not a collector, Connie.”
“That makes you a little more dangerous. I understand collectors. You see, I… What’s the matter?”
“I just wondered if I know that man.”
She turned and looked. “Oh, that’s one of Cal’s show business connections. A dreary little chap. Claude Boody.”
There was no hint of the imperiousness the artist had put into the oil painting in Puerto Altamura. The jowls were the same. The eyes were sad, wet, brown and bagged, like a tired spaniel, and he walked with the care of a heart case.
“I guess he just looks like someone I knew once.”
“He has some dreary little syndicated television things, and he buys old foreign movies and dubs the English and resells them to independent stations.”
“You sound knowledgeable, Mrs. Melgar.”
“I have some money in that, too. But not with him.”
“Does Tomberlin have some business association with him?”
“Heavens no! Calvin cultivates a few people like Boody because they can always round up some reckless youngsters for fun and games. Poor Boody travels the world over scrounging properties, and he always looks tired. I guess he does well enough. He lives well. His wife is a neurotic bitch and his children are spoiled rotten.”
We went back to the upper lounge where Tomberlin’s hard-working staff had laid out a generous buffet. It was delicious, and we took loaded plates down to the big deck and ate like a pair of tigers. She licked her fingers, patted her tummy, stifled a belch and moaned with satisfaction. There is a direct relation between the physical approaches to all hungers. This great hearty woman would ease all appetites with the same wolfish intensity, the same deep satisfaction. She would live hard, play hard, sleep like the dead.
Her strong rich body had that magnetic attraction based on total health and total use. She did not relate in any way to the sick subtleties, the delicate corruptions in Tomberlin’s private museum. And I got the hell away from her before I had more awareness than I could comfortably handle.
I wandered again. The party kept shifting and changing, people leaving, people arriving, various states of various kinds of intoxication achieved, small arrangements, made and broken, small advantages taken and rejected. Music boomed from hidden speakers when somebody turned the volume up. All evening it had been incurably, implacably Hawaiian. I heard the reason in a snatch of conversation. Tomberlin liked it, and would have nothing else.
I mapped the place in my mind. Then I rechecked my dimensions. I wandered outside and identified the windows and the relationship between them. I charted in the power sources. I wondered how many Hawaiians the damned man had. I wondered what kind of nippers would bite that wire, and how I would get up to the window, and how I would get back up to it from the inside bearing a hundred and a half of ancient gold, if I could get it out from behind those glass ports.