The Genius

“I know a little bit. Enough not to worry about you going after my dad’s retirement fund.”

I laughed. “If you think I’m as rich as my father you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Darn.”

“What.”

“I was hoping I’d get, like, a morning-after present in the mail. Like a diamond necklace or something.” “I can give you a lithograph.”

“That’s it. I don’t even get a painting.”

“For preferred clients only.”

“Aw,” she said. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“Please,” she said. “Where do you think I learned it.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry about when I called her a bitch. She’s not.”

I nodded.

“We’re all a little on edge right now.”

“That’s understandable.”

“She was angry that I brought you here.”

“I can apologize to her, if you’d like.”

“Are you kidding? Absolutely not.”

“I will if it’ll help.”

“She’s not angry at you. She’s angry at me. And, you know, she’s not even angry at me, either. She never drinks. This is the first time I’ve seen her that way in my entire life. She used to hate my father’s drinking.”

“I didn’t know he drank.”

“You didn’t know him most of his life.” She sniffled. “He smoked, too. You don’t get esophageal cancer at sixty-one unless you’re trying pretty hard.”

I said nothing.

“I’ll never get them,” she said. “She loved him. I don’t think she ever stopped. You know what she said one time? Julie told me this. My mom was visiting her in Wilmington. They were driving along, and she goes, ‘Other than the fact that Jerry’s a total moron, he’s a good husband.’” She shifted; I felt her smile against my arm. “Can you believe that?”

“Easily.”

“I’d get upset except I agree with her.”

“You and Jerry don’t get along.”

“We have nothing to say to one another.”

“So I gathered.”

She smiled again. “Did Annie tell you that, too?”

“I figured it out myself. She did tell me about your mom and Jerry.” “She really gave you the goods, didn’t she?” She turned over and our faces were close. I brushed the hair out of her eyes. She said, “Anything you don’t know?”

“Plenty,” I said and kissed her again.

11 12

A/nd then nothing happened.

U For a week my life became as quiet as it ever had been, pre—Victor Cracke quiet. At the gallery we began hanging a new show. For the most part, the frantic phone calls had tapered off; after a big fair, everyone needs time to recuperate, to make sure they’re still solvent and still care about art. I had lunches and dinners with clients and friends. A totally ordinary, totally empty week, and in trudging through it, McGrath’s void loomed unexpectedly large. I kept picking up the phone to call him and then standing there dumbly, holding the receiver and wondering who was in charge of the case now.

The answer, of course, was no one. The mystery ofVictor Cracke would remain exactly that.

I had to ask myself if that was such a bad thing. The show had come and gone; the sales had gone through, the checks cleared. I stood very little to gain by asking more questions. It’s true that we are, by design or by fluke, a curious species, and ignorance grates inside us like sand in an oyster. But I had long trained myself to accept and love ambiguity. Why should five boys, four decades dead, matter to me when every day I read about murder, war, global injustice—without being moved to act? Any obligation I felt toward McGrath was strictly my own invention. I had not known the man

long enough to feel guilty letting his last wishes go unfulfilled. The sense of loss that overtook me, then, was as surprising as it was overwhelming.

As I mentioned, my reasons for helping McGrath were purely selfish. So I had told myself every time I got into a car and went to Breezy Point. With him gone, though, I had to admit that I actually missed the old bastard. Going back to work made me realize the degree to which he represented the polar opposite of everyone I normally dealt with. Without pretension, unafraid to admit ignorance or to show his hand when he wanted something. He had never attempted to keep up appearances, even as he fell apart; and in his physical frailty I discerned a profound honesty, verging at times on beauty. He became in my mind a walking work of art, a human Giacometti: sanded down by illness to within an inch of his bare essence, radiance peeking through the cracks.

And I began to wonder if there hadn’t been something else motivating McGrath, as well. Why had he trusted me to begin with? Surely he had believed I had a vested interest in proving Victor innocent. (If he’d known the truth—that Victor’s popularity had tripled following the rumors—he might have suspected me of bias toward guilt.) By putting off his requests for a copy of the drawings as long as I did, I had made my caginess clear enough. And then—freaking out over the phone, turning up with that letter—I could hardly have seemed rational and levelheaded enough to be of any use. I was going to either conceal or exaggerate.

Maybe, as Samantha had implied, I was the only person willing to help him.

Or maybe he liked me, too.

In any event, the idea that the case would simply return to some slush pile, never to be resolved, depressed me immensely. I’ve already mentioned that I hate to fail. You might find that amusing now that you know a little bit more about me and how much my early years consisted of failure. But here’s the thing: I always took my self-debasement very seriously. Once I had committed to becoming a fuckup, I strove to be the best fuckup around: a prince of debauchery. That drive is part of my character, as much a gift

from my forebears as my inflated sense of self-worth—one is probably an outgrowth of the other, although I’m not sure which is which—and having reopened the case, I did not want to believe that it had bested me.

The easiest opening move would have been to call Samantha. But I couldn’t very well do that. The fact that she hadn’t called me I took as a sign that she regretted our night together. Who was I to argue? But that couldn’t stop me from thinking about her. It had been one of the more physically awkward bouts of lovemaking of my life, the bedframe seemingly about to collapse into splinters and the sheets curling off at the corners—and for that, all the more exhilarating.

All of a sudden my life was back to normal, and the drudgery crushed me. The phone was leaden in my hand; a client in the doorway gave me the beginnings of a headache. My mind wandered, and I found myself unable to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time, let alone hold a sparkling conversation.

“Ethan.”

Marilyn put down her cutlery, for her a grave gesture. She had been going on about something someone had done to someone else in Miami, could I believe the audacity. “Can you at least pretend to listen, please.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Where are you? Are you sick?”

“No.” I paused. “I was thinking about McGrath.”

Notice that I hadn’t lied. I had merely failed specify which McGrath.

“Who? Oh. Your policeman?”

Of the three or four—or maybe I’m misremembering, maybe it was five or six—digressions I’d taken since Marilyn and I got together, I had never once bragged to her afterward. But I’d also never lied.

Your policeman.

I lied, then: I lied with a nod.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s very, very sad. Are you too sad to eat that?”

It came quickly, then, a stab of hate for her. Many times in the past I had been annoyed with her, but this was different, and I had to excuse myself.

I went to the bathroom, washed my face, and slapped myself a couple of times. Pay attention. Common courtesy. I resolved to put the McGrath family out of my head and to be civil. And then—not tonight, but in a few days—and in a vague way—I would hint to Marilyn that I’d been with someone else. I didn’t have to say who. She’d be fine. I’d get it off my chest. I’d get over it, and so would she. I dried my hands and returned to the table. Marilyn had paid the check and left.