lips.
“
Grazie
. Please come up. I am sorry for the such long climb.”
We followed her four flights up the steep concrete stairs. I had the feeling that Hogan, who kept glancing up at Claudia’s fluid hips as we ascended, would have gladly done any number of floors.
At the top landing a corridor led past stacks of scrap lumber and discarded machine parts to a paint-splattered door scrawled with a flamboyant gold “Claudia.” The whole building smelled faintly of turpentine.
Claudia pushed the door back and motioned us through. Just inside was an L-shaped kitchen with a service island. Two bottles of red wine sat on a wooden table improvised out of sawhorses and a length of plywood covered with an ivory-hued bed sheet. A vase of fresh flowers stood between the bottles.
“Sit, sit,” Claudia said, waving us toward several folding chairs by the table. “Be comfortable.”
Hogan and I eased into the unstable seats.
“Jack, please, would you open for me?”
I clamped one of the wine bottles under my limp left arm and uncorked it, while Claudia went to a cupboard and brought out black olives, two cheeses, and a round loaf of bread.
“Fresh baked,” she said. “From two blocks, very near.”
I poured wine into three straight-sided glasses.
“To all our friends,” Claudia toasted, “living and dead.” Strangely, it was a salute I had heard Hogan use.
“You understand, Claudia,” I told her, “we’re not here just for a visit. Hogan has some unpleasant work to do. He might have to ask you rude questions.”
“But why?” She looked Hogan in the eye. “I did not kill Amanda. I liked her a great much. And I did not ask to Philip that he kill her.”
“What did you ask him to do?” Hogan said.
“Just to leave her.”
“To Mrs. Oliver,” he said, “it might have amounted to much the same thing.”
“It was not so easy for Philip also.”
Hogan nodded, with an expression that looked almost like sympathy. “All right, let me guess. He told you he would walk out on her, once a few important matters got settled—with his company, and between him and Mandy.”
“Yes.”
“But every time one thing got settled, something new came up.”
“Yes.”
“The art collection, the houses, the investments.”
“Many such things.”
“Until finally you got fed up and said you couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I told him I would not be his little art whore.”
Hogan studied his wine for a moment. “When was that?”
“Last week, before he left for California.”
Hogan slugged down my short pour of wine. Claudia, perfectly calm, slowly sliced two pieces of cheese onto a wedge of warm bread and handed it to him. She refilled his glass. All the while, Hogan’s eyes followed her skilled hands, darting away just once, when her head turned, to take in her swelling form.
“My friend wants to learn a bit more about you,” I said. “Can we look at your work?”
“With pleasure. Whatever you like.”
I topped off Claudia’s glass and mine, and we all walked into the studio. Paintings leaned in stacks against three of the walls. Pinned on the fourth wall was a loose canvas, its surface dense with the stylized carnal tanglings that had gained Claudia her nascent celebrity. The oversized studio had north light from a row of windows set high up under the fifteen-foot ceiling.
“I work on a new series,” Claudia said. We paused before the unstretched canvas, and she tilted her head from side to side as she studied it. “Do you think it’s alive, Jack?”
“Definitely.”
“Yes, it’s the only thing that matters in art.”
“Or in people,” Hogan added.
Claudia turned to face him. “No, some people are much better dead. In Italy we have much history, and we know the value of killing.”
“Anyone you’d care to nominate?”
“More than one. The men around Philip. Those
consiglieri
at his office.”
“What’s wrong with the men at his office?”
“They hate me, they’re
“
Grazie
. Please come up. I am sorry for the such long climb.”
We followed her four flights up the steep concrete stairs. I had the feeling that Hogan, who kept glancing up at Claudia’s fluid hips as we ascended, would have gladly done any number of floors.
At the top landing a corridor led past stacks of scrap lumber and discarded machine parts to a paint-splattered door scrawled with a flamboyant gold “Claudia.” The whole building smelled faintly of turpentine.
Claudia pushed the door back and motioned us through. Just inside was an L-shaped kitchen with a service island. Two bottles of red wine sat on a wooden table improvised out of sawhorses and a length of plywood covered with an ivory-hued bed sheet. A vase of fresh flowers stood between the bottles.
“Sit, sit,” Claudia said, waving us toward several folding chairs by the table. “Be comfortable.”
Hogan and I eased into the unstable seats.
“Jack, please, would you open for me?”
I clamped one of the wine bottles under my limp left arm and uncorked it, while Claudia went to a cupboard and brought out black olives, two cheeses, and a round loaf of bread.
“Fresh baked,” she said. “From two blocks, very near.”
I poured wine into three straight-sided glasses.
“To all our friends,” Claudia toasted, “living and dead.” Strangely, it was a salute I had heard Hogan use.
“You understand, Claudia,” I told her, “we’re not here just for a visit. Hogan has some unpleasant work to do. He might have to ask you rude questions.”
“But why?” She looked Hogan in the eye. “I did not kill Amanda. I liked her a great much. And I did not ask to Philip that he kill her.”
“What did you ask him to do?” Hogan said.
“Just to leave her.”
“To Mrs. Oliver,” he said, “it might have amounted to much the same thing.”
“It was not so easy for Philip also.”
Hogan nodded, with an expression that looked almost like sympathy. “All right, let me guess. He told you he would walk out on her, once a few important matters got settled—with his company, and between him and Mandy.”
“Yes.”
“But every time one thing got settled, something new came up.”
“Yes.”
“The art collection, the houses, the investments.”
“Many such things.”
“Until finally you got fed up and said you couldn’t take it anymore.”
“I told him I would not be his little art whore.”
Hogan studied his wine for a moment. “When was that?”
“Last week, before he left for California.”
Hogan slugged down my short pour of wine. Claudia, perfectly calm, slowly sliced two pieces of cheese onto a wedge of warm bread and handed it to him. She refilled his glass. All the while, Hogan’s eyes followed her skilled hands, darting away just once, when her head turned, to take in her swelling form.
“My friend wants to learn a bit more about you,” I said. “Can we look at your work?”
“With pleasure. Whatever you like.”
I topped off Claudia’s glass and mine, and we all walked into the studio. Paintings leaned in stacks against three of the walls. Pinned on the fourth wall was a loose canvas, its surface dense with the stylized carnal tanglings that had gained Claudia her nascent celebrity. The oversized studio had north light from a row of windows set high up under the fifteen-foot ceiling.
“I work on a new series,” Claudia said. We paused before the unstretched canvas, and she tilted her head from side to side as she studied it. “Do you think it’s alive, Jack?”
“Definitely.”
“Yes, it’s the only thing that matters in art.”
“Or in people,” Hogan added.
Claudia turned to face him. “No, some people are much better dead. In Italy we have much history, and we know the value of killing.”
“Anyone you’d care to nominate?”
“More than one. The men around Philip. Those
consiglieri
at his office.”
“What’s wrong with the men at his office?”
“They hate me, they’re
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