“I don’t think he’s coming,” said Lauren. “I’m here with Rodolpho. Rodolpho dear, meet two dear friends, Victor and Elizabeth.”
“Charmed,” said the gray-haired man in a voice twisted by a strong Italian accent. “I justa love this…” He gestured to all the paintings, struggled to find the right word, and then shrugged. “This,” he said.
“Don’t give up on the tapes,” said Beth. “They take time.”
“Rodolpho is in silk,” said Lauren. “He comes from Como.”
“Como, Texas?” asked Beth.
“Italia. I’m from Italia.”
“She knows, dear,” said Lauren. “She is just being funny.”
“Ah, yes. Now I see.” He laughed deeply and falsely.
“Where’s Guthrie tonight, Lauren?” I asked.
“I really don’t know.”
“Don’t you think you should know where your husband is?”
“Unwatched husbands sometimes stray,” said Beth.
“How would you know, dear?” said Lauren.
“Husband?” said Rodolpho.
“He’s hardly ever violent,” I said. “Except when he becomes jealous.”
“Husband? Do I know about this husband?”
“I could use another champagne, Rodolpho,” said Lauren. “Be a dear?”
“Of course. But we musta talk about this husband, yes?”
“Tonight, yes. Now hurry,” she said, her breathy voice turning breathless. “I’m so very thirsty.”
We watched Rodolpho as he walked with mincing European steps out of the gallery on his way to the bar.
“I met him at a reception at the Italian consulate,” said Lauren. “You’d be surprised how many Italians are in Philadelphia, it’s like a glorious, sophisticated subculture in the midst of the Philistines.”
“That you have made it your mission to entertain,” said Beth.
“Be nice, dear, and I’ll introduce you to it.”
“Don’t you think you should be more discreet in your infidelity?” I asked.
“I have been, Victor. I’ve been the soul of discretion. But things have changed.”
“You’ll introduce me?” asked Beth.
Lauren looked Beth up and down, examining her closely. I expected her to stick a finger in Beth’s mouth to check her teeth. “There’s a serious young man, Alberto.” She rolled the “r” in Alberto. “An architect working with Venturi. Dirt poor but very handsome. Give me your number, dear, and I’ll pass it on.”
“How have things changed?” I asked.
“We’re separated, Victor. I moved out. Well, really Sam moved out, but I would have been the one to leave if my father hadn’t bought the house for us.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I lied. “How’s Guthrie taking it?”
“Not well, I’m afraid.”
“That’s too bad,” I said, fighting the smile.
Beth was rifling through her small red handbag.
“And Victor,” said Lauren. “You know that crack about the jealous husband, it was not so far off.”
“Guthrie?”
“He can be brutal. Violent. An absolute beast. I should have known from the first. Anyone who sweats as much as he.”
“You married him,” I said accusingly.
“I thought it was charmingly masculine at the start, those subtle beads of perspiration. He is very athletic, you know. But it kept on coming. Like Niagara Falls. Finally I had him go to the doctor about it, but there was nothing to be done.”
“And so Rodolpho,” I said.
“For tonight, at least. Have you smelled him? He wears the most marvelous scent.”
“Turn around, Victor,” said Beth. I did as she ordered and, using my back as an easel, she scratched out something on a business card. “My home number’s on the back,” said Beth as she handed the card to Lauren.
“You should have two different cards, dear,” said Lauren. “One professional, one personal. That’s what I do.”
“But you don’t work, Lauren,” I said.
“Now that I’m suddenly single, I’ve gone into fashion.”
“Ah, yes,” I said. “The destitute divorced woman, abandoned by her husband, forced to scratch out a desperate living on her own.”
“Close enough,” said Lauren. “Oh, here comes Rodolpho. If you’ll both excuse me, you’ve worried him so. I need to calm him.”
“You won’t forget,” said Beth.
“Alberto,” said Lauren, again rolling the “r,” her eyes widening with the excitement of it all. “Victor, now that things have changed, give me a call. I’ve missed you.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Oh, do, Victor. We had such fun. Ciao.” And off she swept, hips forward, right arm raised, her gold runic bracelets jangling together on her arm, off to intercept the worried Rodolpho and lead him on to another gallery.
“Alberto,” said Beth, rolling the “r.”
“Poor old Guthrie,” I said.
“Yes, Guthrie the beast. All that money,” mused Beth. “That wonderful old name. Gone.”
“But at least he had everything for a time.”
“What about you? You were with her first. What happened?”
I shrugged. “She was slumming when she met me, looking for fun. She said she found me too serious. It was his basic insincerity that first attracted her to Guthrie. And she liked the way he hit on her all the while she was sleeping with me.”
“What else are partners for?”
“Well, at least it’s working out all right in the end.”
We strolled through the rest of the twentieth-century wing, ending in a room dominated by the work of Marcel Duchamp. There were tiny surreal sculptures, a wall of cubist paintings, visual jokes on paper, a glass vial of 50 cc of Parisian air in a case by a window looking out over the front courtyard. In the rear of the room, in its own alcove, was a wooden door with a peephole. I looked. Through a hole in a brick wall I saw a faceless woman, lying on her back, naked in the straw, her vagina jagged as a wound. The woman was holding a lantern that illuminated the scene brightly. It was a wildly disconcerting view through that little hole and I was slightly off balance when I left the alcove and bumped into Veronica. Chester Concannon was with her, still playing the beard.
Veronica was wearing a short silk dress, her head purposefully facing away from us, scanning the walls, showing off her long neck and gentle gentile profile, as I made the introductions. When I mentioned her name her head slowly turned until she stared me straight in the eye. “Hello, Mr. Carl.”
“Pleased to meet you, Veronica,” said Beth with an amused voice that Veronica ignored.
“How’s that landlord of yours?” I asked.
“Still a problem,” she said. “So tell me, Mr. Carl, what do you think of this painting?”
She gestured to a large canvas on the wall. It was painted in different shades of red and brown and tan, a flurry of abstract shapes. I walked over to it and bent down to read the label. “Duchamp: Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. 1912.” I stood back and could just make out the figure on the stairs and track her movement downward and to the right.
“Interesting,” I said.
“I had a boyfriend once who told me I looked like that,” said Veronica.
I stared into her eyes for an instant and then turned back to the painting. “It’s sort of abstract,” I said. “Which makes it hard to tell.”
“It’s easier if you see me with my clothes off.”
She was smiling at me, I could tell, even with my back to her. When I faced her again I smiled back and so we smiled at each other.
“Do you want to join us after the fund-raiser, Victor?” asked Chester, interrupting our smiling. “You too, Elizabeth. We’re meeting at Marabella’s.”
“Thank you, Chester,” I said. “But I should get some sleep this week, don’t you think? Can I have a word, though?” I motioned him away from the two women so we could talk confidentially. “Tell me a little about your friend Chuckie Lamb,” I said quietly.