“What about him?”

“Why did you want into his program?”

“Roger’s the man.”

“What do you mean?”

“He does his thing and doesn’t give two shits what anybody thinks about it. And because he’s done that his whole life, he’s now a rich and famous man.”

“You want to be rich and famous too, Leon?”

“Whatever.”

“Do you like Wheaton?”

“What’s to like or not like? The guy paints, that’s it.”

“Do you respect him?”

“The guy’s dying, but he keeps working and he doesn’t bitch. I respect that. You see the piece he’s doing now? The room thing?”

“Yes.”

“It’s tearing him up, doing that. He’s got all kinds of joint problems. His tendons or something.”

“Enthesopathies,” Lenz says.

“Whatever. He has to climb that ladder and sit there for hours, holding his neck in one position. It’s worse than the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo had scaffolding, so he could lay on his back, you know? And Wheaton’s hands… Sometimes his fingers turn blue, man. Blue. First white, then blue, sometimes even kind of black. There’s no blood going to them, and he can’t paint or anything else. It’s agony. But he just sits down and waits until it stops, then goes right back to work.”

“You clearly respect him,” says Lenz. “And I suspect you don’t give respect easily.”

“You got that right. I think Roger saw a lot of shit in the war. He’s got wisdom, and he knows how to pass it on. By example.”

“What about Frank Smith?” asks Lenz.

Gaines makes a spitting sound.

“You don’t like Smith?”

“Frankie’s a silver-spoon butt pirate from Westchester. He walks like he has a dildo stuck up his butt, and he preaches every time he opens his mouth.”

“What about his paintings?”

Gaines laughs in derision. “The nude fag series? Very tasty. You seen any of them? He cops the old masters so the stuff looks less like porn, then pawns it off on ignorant queens from New York. It’s a sweet scam, I’ll give him that. I’d try it myself, but I have this aversion to anal penetration. You know? But hey, maybe that’s just me.”

“What about Thalia Laveau?” asks Lenz.

Another pause, as though Gaines is debating whether to answer. “She’s a tasty piece, if you like dark meat. Which, on occasion, I do. She doesn’t look black, but she’s got the blood, all right. Darker the berry, sweeter the juice, right?”

“What about her paintings?” asks Kaiser.

“She paints the poor and downtrodden. Who wants to buy that? A few guilty liberals from New England. She ought to go back to stripping.”

“She told you she stripped for money?” asks Lenz.

“A Newcomb art history chick told me. She and Thalia munch carpets together on occasion. Don’t tell me you guys didn’t know.”

“Do you know a man named Marcel de Becque?” asks Lenz.

“Never heard of him.”

“We’re going to want to take some pictures,” Kaiser says in a detached voice. “Our photographer was supposed to be here already, but I’m sure we can find something to talk about in the meantime.”

Baxter slaps my knee. “Go. And if it gets rough, hit the floor.”

He opens the door, and I’m on the concrete, moving up the line of shotgun houses to the sound of R. Kelly coming from a boom box. I nod to the porch-sitters who’ll assume from my clothes and the camera around my neck that I’m what I used to be, a newspaper photographer sent down here for pictures of a corpse or drug activity.

The green paint is peeling from the walls of Gaines’s house, and the screen on the door is a rusted patchwork of orange and black. I feel a moment’s trepidation as I reach for the handle, but the knowledge that Kaiser has a gun settles me enough to knock and go through the door.

The first thing that hits me is the smell. The scents of paint and oil that made Wheaton’s studio so pleasant are here smothered by the stink of mildew, stale beer, rotting food, tobacco, and marijuana. Kaiser, Lenz, and Gaines practically fill the front room, which is long and narrow and throws me back to the countless shotgun houses I visited when I worked for the Times-Picayune.

“Who’s this?” asks Gaines.

There’s a strange caesura as Kaiser and Lenz judge his reaction to me. I force myself not to look at him by busying myself with my camera. Past the camera I see a brown sofa pitted with cigarette burns and a threadbare carpet stained with drops of oil paint. The walls are bare but for an airbrushed Elvis on one wall and a small but elegant abstract over the sofa. A large easel stands the corner nearest me, a dirty cloth thrown over it.

“She’s our photographer,” says Kaiser. He points at the easel. “Is that painting yours?”

“Yeah,” Gaines replies, and from the sound of his voice I can tell he’s still looking at me.

I give him my face, searching his eyes for signs of recognition. They’re dark coals set in yellow sclera, and they look permanently wide, like a hyperthyroid patient’s, the effect exaggerated by dark half-moons beneath them. A limp black perm hangs over his forehead, and three days’ growth of beard stubbles his face. In person, his skin has the sickly white pallor of a snake’s belly. It’s not hard to imagine him rolling a lawn mower over a live cat.

“Take the sheet off the painting so she can shoot it,” Kaiser orders.

“Maybe I don’t want it shot till it’s finished.”

“Maybe somebody somewhere gives a shit what you want.” Kaiser walks over to the easel and yanks off the sheet.

Because I expected so little, Gaines’s painting is startlingly powerful. A lank-haired blond woman with a hard face sits at a kitchen table in the harsh light of a bare bulb. She’s surrounded by dirty cereal bowls and fast-food bags, and her shirt is open to the waist, revealing small sagging breasts. Her hollow eyes look out from the canvas with the sullen resignation of an animal that has helped build its own cage. It’s hard to imagine such truthful art coming from the creature standing across the room, but talent isn’t handed out on a merit system.

I set the flash on the Mamiya and start shooting, doing my best to ignore Gaines, whose eyes I feel like greasy fingers on my skin. After ten shots, I turn to the small abstract on the other wall. It’s different from Gaines’s work, but it looks like an original. Some female art student probably gave it to him after he slept with her.

“Who painted that?” I ask, shooting a snap of the small canvas.

“Roger,” Gaines replies.

“Roger Wheaton?” asks Lenz.

“Yeah.” Gaines moves closer to me. “I can tell you like my picture. You ought to come back later and let me paint you.”

I would laugh were the situation not so grave.

“Shut up, you cheating bastard!”

I whirl to find the blond woman from the painting charging into the room. Wild eyes flash in her pale face, and a livid red mark the size of a fist covers one cheek from eye to mouth, the center of it already turning dark.

“Get back in there!” Gaines yells, his right hand balled into a fist.

Kaiser interposes himself between Gaines and the girl, who’s wearing only a thin nightgown. “Has this man assaulted you, miss?”

“He fucked me over, is what he done! He’s a goddamn liar! He said I was gonna be a model!”

“Have you modeled for him without clothes?”

“Hell, yes! He hardly lets me put anything on. But he don’t want to paint, he just wants to fuck. That and get stoned, all day every day. And once he gets stoned, he can’t even do that!”

“Get out, goddamn it!” Gaines screams, raising his fist.

The girl looks at me with a defiant rage. “Don’t let them crazy eyes get you, honey, he’s a loser.”

“Like you’d know?” Gaines yells. “This lady’s got class.”

The woman laughs. “Yeah? That means she don’t lay down with trash like you.”

Gaines lunges at her, but Kaiser does something with his foot and suddenly Gaines is on the floor, clutching his knee with both hands. The girl laughs hysterically and points at Gaines.