But if Joe is willing to keep the title a secret, I think I can deliver the body. You talk to Joe. But you never did tell me where Joe got his training.”
“Oh. Joe could always draw; I’m sure he could have learned to read, he remembers what he sees. When he was about fourteen, he was being held overnight with some other boys in the precinct lockup and the desk sergeant got a look at some sketches Joe had done while he was killing time, waiting to be taken up in front of the judge and warned. One was of the desk sergeant—and Joe had seen him only a few minutes.
“That was Joe’s break. The desk sergeant turned him over to the priest and got him off the blotter and both of them took him to a local artist, and showed him the kid’s sketches.
“This artist was a mixture, fine art and commercial—I mean he made money. He was another sort of mixture, too. An oyster. He may not have been impressed by Joe’s sketches but he made a deal with him. Modeling. Joe could hang around his studio and use his materials and sketch from his models—if Joe would pose when he needed him. They both won on the deal; you know how Joe looks now; at fourteen I’d bet he was more beautiful than any girl—and no doubt that oyster thought so.
“So Joe did and soon he was eating and sleeping there and got away from his mother entirely, best thing that ever happened to him. Joan, it was a one-bed studio like this one.”
“You mean Joe was his sweetheart? Gigi, I decline to be shocked. Even though I’m ninety-five, I try to think modern.”
“Joan, I never can believe that’s your age; it isn’t real, like that million dollars. I said ‘oyster’ not ‘homo.’ The artist was married, or shacked, with his number-one model. Possible she got Joe’s cherry. Either way, she taught him plenty and mothered him and was good to him, and it was a happy Troy.
“But the artist—Mr. Tony, as Joe speaks of him—while he gave Joe the use of his studio and table and bed and wife—was nevertheless a strict master. He wouldn’t let Joe paint with a palette knife or a wide broom or do distortions or abstracts or psychedelics—he made him learn to draw. Anatomy. Composition. Brush techniques. Color values. The whole endless drill of academic art, and wash brushes and sweep out the studio. Joe says that if it hadn’t been for Mr. Tony, he would still be sketching sausage skins. Joe found out what he could do, what he wanted to do, and learned to do it. But, so he told me, not what his master did—but in both cases founded on old-fashioned academic training. The hard way. Oh, Joe’s learned short cuts. But he can paint directly on canvas—he’s been doing it since our last break—and make it as close to a photograph as he cares to. Or as different.”
“—never said that poor is better than rich, Gigi; it is not. But both ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ have shortcomings—somewhere between is probably best, if you could get off the treadmill at that point. But— Look, does Joe guard you when you go grocery-shopping?”
“Huh? Of course not. Oh, sometimes he comes along and helps carry—but not to guard. Well, he does ride down the lift with me if it’s a time of day when it might be empty—I mean, he’s no fool and neither am I and I don’t go looking for a mugging. Same coming back up and if I’m later than I said I would be, he’s always there waiting. But I move around by myself, always have; I’m just not foolish about where and when.”
“Gigi, I’m sure you’re not foolish, I doubt if you ever go into a park—”
“Not even at high noon! I’ve been raped once and didn’t like it. I’m not looking for a gang bang where they take turns holding you down. They ought to bulldoze every park in the city.”
“Bulldozing the whole city might be better. But, Gigi, you move around rather freely. I can’t. I don’t dare appear even with guards around me without being veiled, I can’t risk being recognized. I have to be wary all the time. Sure, you bolt your door—but my house has to be strong enough to take a bomb tossed against it—that’s happened several times since I built it. I have to watch for everything from kidnappers and assassins to mere nuisances who want to touch me.