Miki grinned. “As if. You need some frivolity in your life. An extra helping, in fact.”
They took the subway across town to the market, and then walked the ten blocks or so up Lee Street to the Rosses and the apartment that Miki shared with her brother near the Kelly Street Bridge, going at a slow pace because of the steady ache in Hunter’s side. It was still cold, and the temperature was dropping, but after being cooped up inside the store all day and then the crowded subway ride, they enjoyed being outside, never mind the chill.
“You’ve never been here before, have you?” Miki said as she ushered Hunter inside her building.
“Not since you and Judy had your house-warming.”
“That’s right. I forgot you’d come. But you didn’t stay long.”
Hunter nodded. “Ria got bored.”
“I thought you said you were going to a gallery opening.”
Hunter shrugged. “It sounded better than Ria being bored.”
The building didn’t look like much from the outside—just another ratty downtown brownstone—but once Hunter stepped into the foyer he realized that its tenants still took pride in the old war-horse. He’d forgotten how well maintained it was. There were still a few of these places left in the downtown area, buildings where the tenants refused to be intimidated by the steady exodus from the inner-city core and the subsequent arrival of those with less than a personal pride in keeping up the neighborhood. The tile floors of the foyer were clean, the walls freshly painted, all the overhead lights were in working order. The brass bank of mailboxes by the door was polished and gleaming.
“This place is in great shape,” he said as they walked down the hall to Miki’s ground-floor apartment.
“I know. Everyone puts the time in to keep it that way. Mind you, we do it for ourselves. The landlord couldn’t give a shite.”
“You’d think he’d be happy.”
“I doubt he’s ever set foot in this building,” Miki said. She turned the key, unlocking the door. “Hey, Donal!” she called when the door was open. “Put on your trousers—we’ve company.”
There was no response.
“I guess he’s still out,” Miki said.
Hunter followed her inside to find things no more familiar here than the foyer had been. No surprise, he supposed, considering how brief that earlier visit had been. The front hall was also part of the living room which boasted a pair of club chairs, an old stuffed sofa with a flower print that didn’t quite match the Oriental rug under it, and a handmade shelf running along one wall that held Miki’s stereo and a haphazard collection of vinyl albums, CDs, cassettes, books, and magazines.
From where they stood removing their boots and jackets, Hunter could see the kitchen at the end of the hall, and part of the dining room. The latter had been turned into a bedroom—Miki’s, Hunter realized after a moment, noting a poster of John Coltrane and another advertising Italian-made Castag-nari melodeons on the walls. Miki was always raving about their tone and the beautiful wood finishes on the Castagnaris, though she herself played a bright red Paolo Soprani that she’d had for ages, replacing her old Hohner that had wheezed more than offered up musical notes towards the end.
“You gave up your bedroom?” he asked as they walked past the dining room towards the kitchen.
Miki shrugged. “Donal needed the space for his studio. I didn’t want him sleeping in the same room as all those noxious turps and the like. Bad enough he works with them.”
“But it’s your apartment,” Hunter said. “It doesn’t seem right that you don’t even get your own space.”
Miki glanced at him. “There were times when we didn’t have anyplace to live and if it hadn’t been for Donal, I’d have been taken in by social services and put into some foster home. I’d give up a lot more than a bit of personal space for him.”
“You’re right,” Hunter said. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“I know he can be a right little shite, but he is my brother and he really does mean well.”
On the other side of the hall they passed an open door which was obviously DonaPs bedroom. Sparsely furnished, clothes draped everywhere. Miki paused at the closed door a little farther down the hall.
“Donal?” she called, rapping on the wood with a knuckle.
When there was no answer, she opened the door.
“Sometimes when he’s really involved in his work,” she told Hunter, “he doesn’t even hear…”
Her voice trailed off.
“What is it?” Hunter asked.
He stepped around her and then he saw what had stolen away her voice. The room was dominated by a large canvas that had to be at least six foot by nine. Though obviously incomplete, the image caught in the paint was riveting. A naked man wearing a mask of leaves hung Christ-like from an enormous oak. His body was clothed in a nimbus of gold light that was picked up again in the leaves of his mask and the trunk of the tree behind him. Green blood poured from his mouth, the palms of his hands where they were nailed to the tree, and a gaping wound in his abdomen. No, Hunter realized as he stepped closer. Not blood. What poured out of the wounds was a liquid spill of finely detailed leaves and spiraling vines.
The rendering was so perfect that, at a first glance, you thought there really was a man hanging there. No wonder Miki had been so startled.
“Well, it’s an amazing painting,” Hunter said, “but I sure wouldn’t want it hanging on my wall.”
When Miki didn’t respond, he turned to look at her. Her usually cheerful features were pulled into an unfamiliar scowl. Lurking in her eyes was an old sorrow that Hunter had never seen before.
“Oh, Donal,” she said.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
She pointed at the painting. “That’s the dying Summer King.”
A feeling went pinpricking up Hunter’s spine as she spoke. For a moment he found himself thinking of the hard men, of deep woods and the smell of cigarette smoke and wolves, of a sullen anger that ran so deep and wild that he could barely comprehend its surface, never mind empathize with its depth. Then the sensation faded.
He blinked and regarded the canvas again, trying to recapture what he’d just felt, but the immediacy was gone, leaving in its wake only a pale, ragged memory.
“The Summer King?” he asked.
Miki nodded. “Just look at the way he hangs there, a last gleam of goodness and light before the end of things.”
“What do you mean? The end of what things?”
“The summer. The way we are… who we are…”
Hunter regarded her, confused by the depth of her concern.
“But it’s just a painting,” he said.
“For now,” Miki said, her voice so soft he was unsure he’d heard her correctly until she said it again. “For now.”
“Miki, what’s so upsetting about—?”
But she didn’t want to talk about it. Taking his arm, she steered him out of the room, firmly closing the door behind them. She gave him a bright smile.
“So,” she said. “What was that you were saying earlier about dinner at the Dear Mouse Diner?”
Hunter wanted to know what it was about the painting that had so shaken her, but knew he had to let it go for now. Miki could be one of the most stubborn people he knew when she put her mind to it. When she was in headstrong mode, you might as well try arguing with a stone. So he let her change the subject, let her change the mood, and tried to go along with it. But where in the past few days an out-of-place sexual tension had lain uncomfortably between them, now there was something darker. Hunter had no idea what it was. All he knew was that he liked it even less.
15