"Are you here, Perse?" I asked
The wind rushed in... "Are you here, Perse?" I asked
The wind rushed in through the screensThe waves
crashed on the shore with metronome-like
regularityBirds flew over the water, cryingOn
the beach I could see another burst-open tennis
ball crate, already half-buried in the sand
Treasure from the sea; fair salvage from the caldo
She was watching, all rightWaiting for me to
break downI was quite sure of itHer - what?
her guardians? - might sleep in the daytime, but
not her
907
"I win, you win," I said"But you think you got
your lasties, don't you? Clever Perse
Of course she was cleverShe'd been playing the
game for a long timeI had an idea she'd been old
when the Children of Israel were still
chanel pearls grubbing in
the gardens of EgyptSometimes she slept, but now
she was awake
And her reach was long
My phone began to ringI went back in, still
feeling like two Edgars, one earthbound, the other
floating above the earthbound Edgar's head, and
picked it up
"Edgar? What's this shit about not releasing the
paintings to-"
"Not now, Dario," I said I broke the
connection and called PamNow that I wasn't
thinking about it, the numbers came with no
problem whatsoever; that marvelous muscle memory
thing took over completelyIt occurred to me that
human beings might be better off if that was the
only kind of memory they hadI don't know what she'd taken, but
it was already workingWe
omega usa talked for twenty
minutesShe wept through most of the conversation,
908
and was intermittently accusatory, but when I made
no effort to defend myself, her anger collapsed
into grief and bewildermentI got the salient
points, or so I thought thenThere was one very
salient point that we both were missing, but as a
wise man once said, "You can't hit em if you can't
see em," and the police representative who called
Pam didn't think to tell her what Mary Ire had
brought to our daughter's Providence apartment
Besides the gun, that was
"The police say she must have driven, and almost
nonstop," Pam said dully"She never could have
gotten a gun like that on an airplaneWhy did she
do it?
cartier watches women Was it another fucking painting?"
"Of course it was," I saidI
never thought of thatI never thought of herIt was Illy's fucking boyfriend I was
worried about
Speaking very calmly, my ex-wife - that's what she
surely was now - said: "You did thisI should have realized Mary Ire would
buy at least one painting, and that she'd probably
want a canvas from the Girl and Ship series - the
most toxic of allNor would she have wanted the
909
Scoto to store it, not when she lived right up the
road in TampaFor all I knew, she might have had
it in the trunk of her beat-up Mercedes when she
dropped me at the hospitalFrom there she could
have gone right to her place on Davis Islands
gold gucci watches to
get her home protection automaticHell, it would
have been on her way north
That part I should have at least guessedI had
met her, after all, and I knew what she thought of
my work
"Pam, something very bad is happening on this
islandI-"
"Do you think I care about that, Edgar? Or about
why that woman did it? You got our daughter killed
I don't ever want to talk to you again, I don't
want to see you again, and I'd rather poke out my
eyes than ever have to look at another picture of
yoursYou should have died when that crane hit
you There was an awful thoughtfulness in her
voice"That would have been a happy ending
There was a moment of silence, then once more the
hum of an open
miu miu clutch