again!… but it’s all so boring, she can’t imagine what set Sergei off like that… she can feel herself dozing off… falling asleep like a horse… standing up—pop!—up pops Sergei’s name from out of nowhere: “Twenty paintings, valued at $70 million, were donated to the Miami Museum of Art by the recently arrived Russian collector Sergei Korolyov.”
Now she’s alert… What about Sergei?… Sergei?… But there is nothing more about Sergei… buzz… buzz… buzz… just more about the Russian painters, Malevich, Goncharova, and Kandinsky… The “big, hearty, belly-laughing” Russian painter, this Drukovich, has another shot of vodka and starts making fun of all three of them… buzz… buzz… buzz… Does Drukovich think he could do what they’ve done? “Anybody could!” he says. “I could do it, except that makes me have to look at this [s--t].” He says he’d have to do it blindfolded, and as a matter of fact he has actually done it blindfolded… buzz buzz… another shot of vodka… Somebody asks him where these paintings are… He says he doesn’t know… Maybe he threw them away or lost them or gave them to somebody… If he gave them away, who would he give them to?… “Who would want them?” says the Russian. Somebody says, “The Miami Museum of Art certainly seemed happy to get the real things. They valued them at $70 million… Maybe you gave them to the museum.”… laugh laugh laugh… The Russian says, “That is the most silly thing I ever heard”… more vodka… buzz buzz buzz buzz… The guy must be drunk as a monkey by now… Magdalena reads the whole thing to the end… no more mention of Sergei… Then what freaked Sergei out? Would he get that mad because somebody nobody has ever heard of said he didn’t like what Sergei had given the museum?… That must be it… He must be very proud and very touchy about that… buzz… buzz… buzz… and to think she just forced herself to read all that stuff…
As ordered, Vladimir was waiting when Magdalena left Sergei’s suite. He bore the absolutely blank expression of the efficient automaton that he was. He didn’t move a muscle in his face when he saw her. But his very presence was enough to turn her head hot with shame. What would she look like to the rest of the world this morning? That was easy: like a cheap slut the morning after the orgy, wearing the same boobs-rampant almost-a-dress she arrived in last night… still dripping with diseased papaya ooze.
Thank God there was an elevator that took you straight down to the underground parking garage. Without a word, Vladimir led her to what turned out to be Sergei’s limousine, a tan Mercedes Maybach. She got into the capacious backseat and scrunched down into a corner, seeking invisibility. The only scenery she could see, as they went up a ramp and out onto Collins Avenue, was the back of the hairless white knob that was Vladimir’s head behind the wheel.
::::::Vladimir, don’t you say so much as one word to me.::::::
It turned out that she had nothing to fear on that score. So then she became paranoid.
::::::Sergei treated me like a cheap whore. What if this sinister automaton of his is not taking me home—but kidnapping me and holding me captive in some place I’ve never heard of where they’ll force me to commit unspeakable acts?::::::
Now her eyes were fixed upon the landscape as it rolled by. Desperately she looked for reassuring landmarks. But she knew so little about the geography up here north of Miami Beach—
Thank God! The Fontainebleau came drifting past… they were on the right route… She stared again at Vladimir’s noggin… A whole new rush of possible disasters began romping through her head… How was she going to live now?… Had she assumed somewhere in her head that Sergei was going to keep her the way Norman had?… It had never come to her before in just so many words. ::::::I was a kept woman all that time! It’s true! I turned my back on my family and Nestor and everybody else because Norman was a television celebrity… Some celebrity… he let himself be used anytime TV pimps were looking for some egotist with a medical degree to turn on the pervert in every viewer with the hottest news about pornography addiction… while the rest of the fraternity of psychiatrists looks upon him as a publicity addict and social climber who would do anything to call attention to