Negative Space, Mike Robinson [best contemporary novels TXT] 📗

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