“Okash.”
“Her brother.”
“Dugong.”
A beat. “There goes my punch line. How the hell did you find that out?”
“I left you a message explaining.”
“Saw it but didn’t read it, yet. Too busy with Geoffrey. You have time to bop over?”
I looked at Robin.
She said, “He’s coming over? Sure, I’ll make more sandwiches.”
“He wants me at the station. The angry brother showed up.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to go. Civic duty and all that.”
“I can tell him no.”
She stroked my cheek. “Naysaying’s not your strong point, darling.”
* * *
—
Milo had placed Geoffrey Dugong in a room he rarely used because it flanked a small observation area with a one-way mirror and he didn’t like being observed. Dugong was on his feet, pacing. A gray wheelie bag and a green duffel sat in a corner.
Medina Okash’s half brother wore a black leather jacket, red T-shirt, black jeans, orange sneakers. Tattoos wriggled from under his cuffs and ivied the sides of his neck. The rings sausaging his beard were gone, leaving a coarse fan of dark hair that reached his pectorals.
His circuits were slow, a bent-over trudge that traced the walls of the room. Dispirited, none of the anger we’d seen at the gallery. Younger than Medina Okash but he looked older.
I said, “Different Geoffrey.”
Milo said, “He’s been hitting the sauce hard, fear of flying. His story is he had a flight three hours ago back to Florida, Ubered to the gallery where Okash was supposed to meet him and drive him but she didn’t show up.”
“Why not go straight to the airport?”
“Money. She was gonna pay him for the two paintings he sold, said she needed to get a business check. He shows up, the place is dark, he hangs around, walks to the back, finds her car there and knocks on the back door, nada. He tries to call her, no connection, returns to the front, waits some more, gets antsy, tries the back again. At that point Binchy, who’s been observing all this, follows him, ready for a confrontation. Instead, he finds a scared drunk guy who asks for help.”
“What’s so scary about a no-show?”
“Maybe it’s the booze talking or whatever personality issues he’s got. But what he claims is Okash is big on punctuality, it just didn’t feel right.” He eyed the mirror. “You wanna watch him go ’round in circles a few more times?”
“No, enough entertainment.”
* * *
—
The moment we cracked the door, Dugong stopped, stared, and tottered toward a table in the center of the room.
I shook his hand.
“Yeah, I saw you the first time.” Sharp gust of grain alcohol. He burped. “Sorry, I fill the tank before I fly. Scares the shit out of me, I like boats.” Slurred voice, red eyes, cracked lips. In a few years he could hang with the likes of Mary Jane Huralnik.
We sat down across from him.
Milo said, “So you were saying Medina’s never late.”
“I mean, she didn’t used to be.”
I said, “Back when you were kids.”
“Yuh.”
“You guys grew up together?”
“No, no, my dad—our dad—he moved around.” Head shake. “He was a dog and a total asshole. Our mothers hated each other.” A beat. “So we also did.”
I said, “Fighting your mothers’ battles.”
Dugong chewed his lip. His eyes narrowed in concentration; weighing a novel concept. “Guess so.”
“So when did you and Medina start talking again?”
“Last year. I…okay, I’ll be straight, I had a meth problem, got out of rehab but couldn’t find a job on a boat, you know? So I started painting again. I always done it. Drawing, painting, doing collage, anything art. In rehab they said I was good. So I went to Art Basel, it’s this big winter thing in Miami.”
I said, “Showing your stuff there is huge, Geoff.”
Dugong looked at the table. “I wasn’t showing, I got hired to move stuff around.”
“Like a grip?”
“What’s that?”
“Guys who move stuff on movie sets.”
“Yeah, like that. It was shit work for thirteen an hour with faggots ordering you around. But I figured get close to the art, see what’s selling. That’s when Medina saw me. I’m pushing a hand truck, she’s with these rich assholes, dressed in white like a cruise ship, speaking European. We knew each other right away, had saw each other ten years before. His funeral. I wouldn’ta said anything but she did this.”
He held up a wait-a-second finger.
I said, “Wanting you to stick around.”
“Yeah. She finished with the Europeans, it was almost my break so we had coffee. I was like, what do you want, we never got along. But turned out to be a good deal, she’s mellow, we talk, she finds out I paint, she just got her own gallery in L.A., if I come up with something she can use, she’ll look at it. So I walked out on that shit job, got back to the Keys, and went crazy painting. Did a couple of water scenes and sent her a photo and she said great but she needed something more conceptual. I’m like what? She’s like an idea—a concept. Then she tells me about the candles, I say sure, that’s easier than water. I do a candle, send her a photo, she says great, now we’re in business, do a bunch more. She pays to have everything sent here, pays to fly me out. Round-trip.”
“She handled everything.”
“She’s good at that. Organized, you know? So when she’s not there, it feels wrong. ’Cause yeah, she is big on time. Doing things organized. Then your redhead dude shows up—what was he doing there, anyway? Cool guy, though. For one a your—he was okay to me.”
I said, “What’s behind the back door?”
“Huh?”
“The door that leads to the parking lot.”
“The back room.”
“We saw a small storage room but there’s something behind that.”
“Another back room, empty,” said Dugong.
Milo said, “So you got worried.”
“Fuck, yeah, you think?” Sharp glints livened Dugong’s eyes, jagged, like fissures in overheated glass. The spade of beard quivered, large, inked hands rolled naturally into fists. His knuckles were glossy, heaped with keloid scarring.