“What’s up with this guy? Are you doing a story on him?”

  “Well, I was actually wondering if you’d be interested. The show up north runs until next week.” Pemberton started biting his nails, muffling his voice with his fingers. “I figured since you’re good with the offbeat artists you might like to check it out for us.”

  “Good with the offbeat artists?” Ritter snorted. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, I mean, you covered that guy who put big canvases at the bottoms of buildings or cliffs for people committing suicide to land on—”

  “Ted Wilshire, yeah, don’t remind me.”

  “Ted Wilshire, right, you covered him until he was arrested. Now you just came out with this Max Higgins character....”

  “He’s not too offbeat, actually.”

  “Really?” Pemberton furrowed his brow. “He paints missing people into his work, right?”

  “But the way he approaches it...it’s not creepy or morbid. You’d have to see it for yourself. It almost feels like he’s trying to find something. An answer, a cure. Not really sure.”

  “His pieces are strange,” Pemberton said. “I don’t really know how to classify them. You called them surrealistic in your article, didn’t you?”

  “No, he doesn’t want a label on his stuff. And it’s funny—first you think he’s surreal, and it is, but then as you see more of it, or look more closely at a single piece, it seems to shift. Very strange. It goes from surreal, to abstract, then maybe hops over to impressionistic. He fills a lot of cracks.”

  Pemberton nodded. “So what do you think of this Feldman? Knowles was the one who recommended you take a look at it.”

  “Oh yeah? Not Eric the grad student? Whatever his last name is.”

  Pemberton snorted. “Where’ve you been? Eric Fries got fired.”

  “Huh? When? Why?”

  “Something like two days ago. Came into work high as a kite. You didn’t hear about that?”

  Ritter shook his head as a young woman approached his desk, moving up from behind Pemberton. She wore a large gray sweatshirt, her pants ink-black. The dark attire clashed with her pale skin and blonde, almost fluorescent hair. Quite young, Ritter thought. Possibly even a late teenager. Pretty, though.

  She addressed Pemberton. “Are you Norman Ritter?”

  Pemberton swung a thumb toward Ritter, then moved off with a straight-faced salute.

  Ritter studied the woman. “What can I do for you?”

  “Sorry to bother....”

  “It’s okay.”

  “You wrote that article about Max Higgins, right? The one that just came out?”

  “Guilty as charged.” Funny she was here about the Higgins article, as somehow the girl’s demeanor reminded him of the artist. He couldn’t pinpoint the similarity, but supposed it had something to do with her anxious eyes, and the cautious way every word climbed her throat.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I was wondering if you could help me find him.”

  “Who are you? What’s your name?”

  “I’m his sister.”

  “He never said anything about a sister.”

  “He wouldn’t know he had one.” She shifted her weight. “Can you tell me if this is his address?”

  The girl unfolded a small piece of notepad paper and handed it to him. The handwriting was sloppy, but he could make out most of it.

  “No. He lives downtown.” Ritter eyed her. “And no offense, but I don’t know anything about you. What’s your name? Aren’t there any other people closer to him that you can go to?”

  “No, no,” she said, flustered. “Look, I figure you’re not going to help me.” She fished through her pockets, brought out a business card and handed it to him. There was an illustrated silhouette of a curvaceous woman holding a whip, with The Schoolhouse written above the address.

  The Finest BDSM Club in Los Angeles, it read.

  “Give that to him,” said the young woman. “He can find me there. Please.”

  “And you’re sure this is the Max Higgins you’re looking for?” Ritter said. He held up a copy of his spread. “The artist? The hot sauce sucker?”

  The girl looked bewildered, but pointed to Higgins’ picture. She nodded.

  “Yes, that’s him.”

  ***

  IV

  The moment he thought he heard the knock on his door, Max had been thinking how God had nothing on him, or any artist for that matter. God made life, life that was left to chart its own course once it left His hands. That was the beauty of the divine process. But life made art, and with art, no excuse of elegant imperfection could suffice. Art did not have a universe of time to tumble, explode, burn, run, claw toward perfection. Art had to be perfect as is. Now.

  In front of him, now being realized on a 19x24 canvas, was the woman from the Baltimore Sun he’d sketched the night prior. He’d given her five pages of practice in his sketchbook, swerving clear of the cheery yearbook photo in order to seize a much more poignant face, the way it must have been the moment her life caved in, when she realized she would become nothing but an anxious and despairing memory.

  It was the eyes of which he was most proud, because it was the eyes that had shouldered much of the smile in the Karen girl’s photo. In his sketchbook, Max had successfully poisoned those smiling eyes, conveyed in them a kind of existential grief. Hopefully, he would duplicate such success on a larger scale.

  As he did with many of his unwitting subjects, Max assumed she was dead. The article was several months old, and he’d skimmed coverage of the investigation. Karen Eisenlord had not been found.

  Max rode his own roller coaster as he painted, loving the dizzying heights, the stomach-rolling swirls and falls of color as the winds of his technique brushed the landscape of his imagination. He was high. People like Dr. Farmer, his old therapist, had scientific names and causes for such a sensation, even prescribed pills for it, but to Max it was simply artistic wings caught in a wonderfully strong thermal.

  Then there was the knock—or so he thought. It was timid, and Max had barely heard it. His head whipped to the front door. He listened. Nothing. He applied a few more strokes, then rinsed his brush in the water-bucket.

  Another knock. Harder.

  Max stopped.

  “Yeah?”

  Behind the door: “It’s Norman Ritter. From Direct Canvas—?”

  Max swept a quick eye over his piece-in-progress, then turned the easel to face the wall. No one would see it, not yet.

  He went to the door.

  Ritter appeared far more casual this time. Less officious. He looked mildly confused.

  “Hey,” Max said. “What’s going on?”

  “First, I should’ve asked this before. Who’s the guy with the hat, downstairs?”

  “Gonzo?”

  “The homeless doorman. With the derby.”

  “Yeah, Gonzo. All the tenants pitch in to pay his salary. Apparently, he used to loiter around the building. So we just put him to work. Come in.”

  Ritter walked into the studio, nearly stepping on the Taco Shack bag of hot sauce packets. His gaze went back and forth from the floor to Max, who, on his way to the tiny kitchen, stepped over a wad of clothes and bunched-up newspapers.

  “You want a drink?” Max said. “Just got some punch and soda. And water. Got bottles in the pantry.” He popped open a cola for himself.

  “No, no thank you, Max. Did you read the article?”

  Max hesitated. “No. I don’t relish like reading about myself.”

  Bullshit. A stack of eleven issues on the bottom of the bookcase. Better cover them or Ritter will notice and laugh. Bust you.

  “I was thinking about our interview,” said Ritter. “You mentioned your father’s disappearance, your...your mother’s death.”

  “Yeah.” Max sipped his drink.

  “But you never mentioned a sister.”

  “Huh?”

  “Sister,” Ritter said. “You had a sister.”

  “I never had a sister. What’re you talking about?”

  “Stepsister?”

  “No.”

  “Niece? Cousin?”

  Max shook his head. “My only cousin is named George, and as far as I know he’s still a man.” A quick beat. “Why? What is this?”

  “This girl came to see me the other day. She looked pretty young, and asked about you....”

  Max shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Ritter looked across the room toward a covered painting.

  “How was she asking about me?” Max said.

  “Well, for one thing she said she was your sister.”

  “I told you. No sister.”

  “Not one you know of, perhaps. Your father did disappear, after all. But for all I know, she could be some crazed groupie. I felt it best to at least inform you.”

  “You think she’s crazy?”

  “No, she didn’t seem like it.” Ritter got out the business card she’d given him. “But you never know. She got some bogus address for you, from where I don’t know.”

  “What did she look like?”

  There was another knock, a heart palpitation on the door.

  Max said, “Wait, hold that thought.”

  He hurried to the door. It was one of his neighbors, a man named Renaldo, whose English was a lingual archipelago in a sea of Spanish.

  “Agua all over! Agua all over!” he said. “You talk manager?”

  Max nodded, rapidly. “Yes. I will.”

  “El problemo tambien?”

  “Uh, no. Not a problem.”

  Renaldo smiled, wide and eager. The sputtering conversation wound down. Max closed the door and turned back to Ritter, whose attention was on the floor. On his sketchbook. The man was very still.

  Max walked over, noticed the writer’s surprised expression.

  “What is it?”

  “That’s her,” Ritter said in a disbelieving breath.

  “What do you mean, that’s her?”

  “This drawing.” Ritter pointed at the sketch of the missing Karen Eisenloard, from Baltimore. “It’s her. It’s the girl who came to see me.”

  Chapter 2

  I

  He flipped The Schoolhouse business card in his hands, twirling it over and over, constantly glancing at the silhouetted dominatrix. Distracting himself from the other bus passengers, the sundown passengers he rarely encountered on his normal bus routes. Sundown faces differed from those of the late-night and early-morning. Wearier, more bedraggled.

  . The Schoolhouse was not far from the Sirens Shop. He’d never been there, despite their close retail relationship. He’d seen many of their videos, had seen even more covers, yet they had ceased to do much for him. Had this Karen girl been featured in any of the videos he’d sold? Had her visage brushed his eyes before opening that issue of the Baltimore Sun? Was subconscious familiarity the reason she’d spoken to him from the inky sea of other possible subjects?

  Dusk deepened in the sky. Max checked his watch: about five hours before his shift began. He would have time well enough to talk with her. Hopefully she was there, otherwise he would leave a message. Or maybe he could check out the place. It was a new thing, after all, fresh sights and sounds. Inspiration hid in the unknown, unseen and unheard. Maybe lurking in its walls was his next Big Work. Who knew.

  Next? You’d need a first Big Work.

  Tell them you work at Sirens. Get the VIP treatment.

  Behind him, two men quietly discussed the fate of the four officers indicted for assaulting the King fellow. The trial was being moved from L.A. County to Ventura County, where the populace apparently sustained a disproportionate amount of law enforcement officials. One man worried the cops wouldn’t see a single cell bar.

  ***

  A quaint Tudor-style house, almost cartoonishly slim. Beams formed sharp angles along the outer walls, thin windows glaring upon the streets. The house had a tenuous hold on reality. Max took cautious steps up the sidewalk, then noticed someone out of the corner of his eye: a young woman roughly his age.

  “This is the place?” she asked Max. “The Schoolhouse?”

  “I think so. I’ve never been here before.”

  “Me, neither,” she said. “My girlfriend recommended it to me.”

  “I’m just here to talk to someone.”

  They approached the front door in silence. Max was about to knock when the girl homed in on the doorbell and pressed it. From behind the walls and curtained windows, music played audibly. Occasional cries of pleasure rang out. They sounded almost theatrical.

  An older woman, clad all in black, answered the door.

  “Hello, welcome,” she said, motioning them in. “My name is Rose. Do either of you have an appointment?”

  “I have a reservation,” said the woman at Max’s side, some drill sergeant in her tone. “With Christine for eight o’clock. I know I’m a little early, but I don’t mind waiting.”

  “Perfectly all right.” Returning to her desk, Lady Rose flipped through two pages of a large scheduling book. “And you, sir?”

  “I’m actually not here for a session.” He brought out the card. “Is...Penelope here? I’d like to speak with her.”

  “She’s in a half-hour session right now. You can wait if you’d like. She shouldn’t be too much longer, although I think she has another appointment at eight.”

  “That’s fine. Just want to clear something up.”

  With a raised eyebrow, Lady Rose asked, “Are you her boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, okay. Sorry. Sometimes we get those around here. Jealous significant others.”

  “You can rest easy.”

  “Nice to know. You sure you’re not interested in a session?” She smiled at him. “What do you do for a living?”

  A memory ran through his mind—his co-worker Tyler, sitting with legs propped in the backroom and watching a Schoolhouse video. Moans of ecstatic agony. The hard fleshy smacks, the grotesque ripples of the woman’s buttocks. The red lines across delicate skin. The sloppy look on Tyler’s face.

  “I’m an artist,” Max said. “And I’m not interested, really. Thanks, though.”

  Rose gave him a knowing smile. “People are afraid of themselves, it seems,” she said. “They’re so worried they’re going to be judged when they come in here, but really it’s just a release, a liberating break. And it recharges. Puts you in touch with all the things that make us us that no one dares look at. You should know about that kinda stuff, being an artist.”

  Max nodded, half-listening.

  A door opened. Voices. From one of the hallways, a man emerged—nicely-dressed, blazer draped over one arm, hair gelled, complexion flushed. Pretentiously clean. Max thought him an investor, or banker, someone who played all day in the dollar-cent sandbox.

  Maybe it was his own pretensions as an artist, but the money-mover types, these Players, these Movers and Shakers, seemed to Max to betray a woodenness of spirit, a cold mildewed core that was something of an anti-enlightenment. They’d reconnected with the savage neutrality of the elements, but at a much...lower level. A deader level.

  This man, however, looked revitalized.

  “Amazing,” said the man. “Simply amazing. I felt so...so comfortable. That Penelope really knows her stuff.”

  Just seconds behind him was the girl in question. Max’s body stiffened. She wore a skin-tight leather outfit that glistened like oil. A leather cuff hung from her right wrist. She looked vibrant, as well, but an undeniable weariness shaded her expression. Beneath her callused demeanor, Max could still glimpse softness, vulnerability.

  It’s her it’s her Christ it’s her—

  Karen Eisenlord.

  Looking away from her most recent client, she saw Max sitting stiff and aloof. Mr. Mover and Shaker stopped by Rose’s desk to set up a future appointment.

  “Max,” Karen said.

  “Are you—?”

  “Here,” she said, grabbing his arm and leading him toward the door. She called back to Rose, “Taking a smoke break.”

  They stepped out onto the porch. Evening had fallen. The long steady exhale of the 405 Freeway nearby. Max pulled out a Taco Shack packet, bit into it and sucked it down fast, setting aflame his mouth, throat and stomach.

  “You’re...Karen Eisenlord,” he said.

  I’ve been drawing you.

  A sillier notion struck him: I made you live. You crawled out of my sketch, into skin.

  Karen lit a cigarette, which Max tried to ignore as he drained the packet.

  “Penelope at work,” she said. “But yeah. I go by Karen McAdams now.” She blew out smoke. “I thought I might have a visit from you.”

  “You went to Norman Ritter?”

  “The article guy. Yeah.” She took in another lungful of smoke, curled it out through her nose.

  “Who are you?” Max said.

  “I don’t fucking know,” she said with a smile. “Do you know who you are? You have a few years on me so maybe you do.”

  “Why have you been trying to contact me? How...or...or why are you here? You’re missing in Baltimore. Your face is in the paper. By now, everyone probably thinks you’re dead.”

  “I was in the paper?”

  Max nodded.

  “In Baltimore.”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know that, then? Don’t you live here?”

  “I subscribe to a lot of newspapers. It’s a long story.”

  “Ah,” Karen said. “For your artwork, right? You put missing people in your art or something. I saw it in the article.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m your sister. Well, half-sister. My father went missing when I was a kid. Yours did too, right?”

  “Well, yeah. What about it?”

  “I think we had the same father. What was your father’s name?”

  “Darren Higgins.” Max shook his head as what this girl was saying came crashing into him. “Look, why are you telling me this? I don’t talk about my father. I don’t talk about my mother, really. And where...where in God’s name do you get off claiming to be my sister?”

  “Wait here,” she said. She smashed her cigarette against the concrete, then went back inside, returning several moments later with a creased and beaten photograph. She held it out and Max plucked it from her fingers.

 

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