The Death Of Blue Mountain Cat Part 13

"I saw the notice in the paper-for the show-and I was a little miffed that I hadn't been invited. I decided to drop in anyway."

Her smile was definitely sarcastic. "I waited till the receptionist was busy-there's always some nouveau-riche idiot who has to bully the help. I pretended I was waiting to meet someone until she was occupied with one of those and I convinced security that I was the sister of the guest of honor. Maybe the guy forgot to mention it to you. He was very young and had a gap between his front teeth. Ask him."

Thinnes remembered him. He hadn't mentioned any sister. "I will."

"Of course," she added, "he was so busy studying my cleavage, he never asked my name."

Thinnes heard a strangling sound to his right and looked to see Oster choking on that. Personally, he didn't blame the guard. "Then what happened?"

"I went through the museum, looking for the one who died, getting more angry by the minute-or, I should say, by the atrocity. When I found him-I don't remember my exact words but I believe I was less than tactful."

Thinnes waited. She didn't say more. "How did he respond?"

"He laughed. He always knew which b.u.t.ton to push to get me going."

"You and this artist didn't get along."

"That implies..."

"Well?"

"He was a phony. I hate phonies-but not enough to kill one."

Thinnes waited.

"He was from here. He was never one of us. You can't be one of the Dine-what you call Navajo-and not be from the Dinehta." She looked from Thinnes to Oster. "Oh, he lived there for a while-rented a house, went to a few sings to soak up the local color, but he was always an outsider. His mother was white; he couldn't even name his father's clan.

"And?"

"He was an exploiter. Do you think anyone would have bought that junk he made if he hadn't claimed to be an Indian?"

"Why'd he do it?"

"I don't know. Well...Most of my people grow up being ashamed of being Native American. But how can anyone grow up white in this country and not be ashamed, sickened..."

The question seemed rhetorical, so Thinnes let it pa.s.s.

"Why did you go to the reception?"

"To see him. He'd been avoiding me-we used to be lovers, before he met that belagana b.i.t.c.h."

Thinnes waited.

"I just wanted to see him-you know?" When he didn't answer, she shrugged. "I wanted to see what he was doing artistically. I was out of town when he had his last show. He used to do tourist stuff when we were together-Arizona Highways landscapes, stereotyped Indian portraits, that kind of c.r.a.p. I wanted to see how he could get rich and famous doing that."

"Did you?"

"Sure! He sold s.h.i.+t to suckers."

"You know who killed him?"

"No."

"Who might have wanted to?"

"Anyone who knew him well." Thinnes waited. "He had this way of making everything your fault. Nothing was ever his fault. He'd drive you to the edge of distraction, then ask you why you were upset."

"Specifically, who might have wanted him dead?"

"How about that developer he made fun of?"

"Wingate?"

"Yes. The publicity he was getting can't have been helping his business."

"Anyone else?"

"It's the custom of my people, when someone is being-like he who was killed-to avoid him. Whoever did it wasn't one of us."

"How long ago were you and he an item?"

"Five years ago. For a summer. Then she got her hooks into him and it was good night, Irene. To give her credit, though, I think she loved him. I think she'd have killed for him. And she could do more for him than I could have." There was a grudging tone to the last sentence that made what she said sound true.

"When was the last time you talked to him-prior to Thursday night?"

"When he told me he was dumping me for that belagana."

Thinnes remembered what Caleb had asked Bisti's mother. "What was the significance of Blue Mountain Cat? Why a cat?"

"I don't know."

"Is there such a thing as a blue mountain cat?"

"It would have to be a cougar. Blue Mountain is Tsodzil, in New Mexico. I have no idea what significance it had for him."

"Why a mountain lion?"

She shrugged. "I would have thought he'd have chosen a coyote."

After she'd left Thinnes said, "So if you can't be Navajo unless you live in Navajo land, what's Irene Yellow doing in Chicago?"

"The pot calling the kettle black," Oster said. "Why don't we get her back and ask her?"

"Next time. We haven't dealt with this Ivan character yet. Let's get that over with."

"You want me to go pick him up?"

"Sure."

According to the receptionist, Jack Caleb was with a patient when Thinnes called, but he rang back within fifteen minutes. When they'd gotten past the h.e.l.los, Thinnes asked, "What more can you tell me about this Ivan?"

"I don't know him very well. He writes reviews for several art magazines that I know of, and serves on the boards of a number of nonprofit corporations. He manages to get in the society pages."

"What kind of reviews does he write?"

"Witty but brutal."

"Bisti, too?"

"I don't recall. But I don't remember ever reading a positive review. In his own way, he's as much of a satirist as David was, and as skilled at manipulating perception."

"Where can I get one of his reviews?"

"I subscribe to a research service that's pretty efficient. I could have them fax you something."

Thinnes said, "Thanks," and gave him the fax number. "Yellow made the argument that no one would've bought Bisti's stuff if he hadn't claimed to be an Indian. What about that?"

"'The lady doth protest too much, methinks.' And I don't buy that 'he wasn't born here' argument. Joseph Conrad-one of the greatest writers of English prose-was born in Poland." There was a short pause, then Caleb added, "No. David's work is brilliant satire, and the fact that it infuriates both Navajos and whites indicates he had a foot securely on each continent."

Thirty-Three.

"Barbaric waste of talent," Ivan said when he'd accepted a cup of coffee and was seated in an interview room. Ivan the Terrible. Male Cauc, five seven, maybe 180 pounds. He had blue eyes and thinning brown hair-with blond highlights, Thinnes noted sourly. His three-piece suit was flamboyant but expensive. His s.h.i.+rt was silk. His tie, hand painted with flowers. He'd thrown his racc.o.o.n coat over one of the chairs.

Thinnes had trouble thinking of him as a man, though there was certainly nothing feminine about him. He seemed to use the stereotypical limp wrist as a weapon-an offensive one. Likewise the coy tilting of his head and his mincing walk.

His reviews had arrived twenty minutes before the man himself, so Thinnes had had time to skim them before Oster brought him in. Caleb hadn't exaggerated his negativity. Even a recommendation-like the one he'd given Bisti's work-came out as a put-down. It was even more obnoxious than the way he flaunted being gay.

Oster had elected to watch the interview from a distance-behind the two-way mirror, so Thinnes was on his own. He took a seat facing the reviewer and said, "I read your piece on David Bisti." The coffee must've been to give Ivan something to do with his hands; he wasn't drinking it. "I didn't think you liked his stuff."

Ivan pretended surprise, exaggerated it. "My dear, you didn't think I was referring to his artistic abilities!"

He was doing it to make Thinnes uncomfortable, and he decided to call him on it. "What abilities were you referring to?"

"You wouldn't understand." The flippancy masked enormous tension.

"Try me." When he didn't, Thinnes said, "Tell me about your relations.h.i.+p with David Bisti."

"Purely professional, alas. He created things; I reviewed them."

"You ever proposition him?"

"I?"

Thinnes looked around the room as if to see who else Ivan might have thought he meant.

Ivan said, "Of course not." A lie. He wasn't good at it.

"What happened when you propositioned him?"

"I didn't-"

"Did he laugh at you?"

"How dare you?" Thinnes raised his eyebrows. "I came in here to offer my help and you insult me!"

Thinnes stifled the urge to laugh. "Cut the c.r.a.p. You came in here because Detective Oster brought you in. Save your-" He stopped himself before he said "f.u.c.king f.a.ggot routine." Not politically correct. And in a city with as many gay registered voters as Chicago has, career suicide. "Save your injured-innocence act for your fans. We both know you propositioned Bisti."

"What do you want from me?"

"I want to know what you can tell me about David Bisti?"

"He was a minor talent who could have made it. If he hadn't gotten himself murdered, he might have lived long enough to develop a following and create a body of work that'd outlast him."

The statement, or maybe the way he said it, gave Thinnes a reason for Ivan's vicious "reviews." Envy. Envy for artistic talent. Maybe even envy for straight men. The insight didn't make Thinnes dislike Ivan any less, but it made playing head games with him seem as mean-spirited as poking at a snapping turtle with a stick.

Thinnes said, "That's more like it."

And while envy is an occasional motive for murder, he thought, there's no evidence it was the motive in this case.

As if reading his mind, Ivan said, "Were you seriously thinking I might have killed David?" When Thinnes didn't answer, he slapped the air in Thinnes's direction with a limp-wristed hand and said, "Please. If I were going to kill someone, I'd use gas or poison-something less messy."

Thirty-Four.

When Caleb entered his condo, there was a yellow Post-it note stuck to the wall near the door, above the alarm panel.

Dear Dr. C. Einstein attacked my ankles today. I think he's bored. You should consider getting him a friend. L "L" was Lucile, Caleb's housekeeper. She could never remember Freud's name and called him Einstein because Caleb had once told her the Freud was a genius. Caleb's Freud didn't seem to mind.

Caleb waved the note at the cat, who was perched on the chair back nearest the door. "What about this?"

Freud batted at the paper, tentatively at first, with one front paw, then ferociously, sitting up on his hind legs to grab it with both. He seized it with his teeth and bounced to the floor with it, mauling it, and rolling on the floor to disembowel it with all four feet. Then he streaked behind the chair and pounced, from the other side, on the unsuspecting paper, savaging it again.

"Freud," Caleb said, "I think Lucile's diagnosis is correct."