like to finish paint removal so I can go to bed.” The Artist didn’t stop sponging her breasts while she spoke.
“I’m tired, too, between the weather, and death, and people lying to me,” I said. “Tell me what Nadia told you about Chad Vishneski.”
“She didn’t tell me anything,” the Artist said. “Rivka, finish my shoulders so I can put on a sweater. It’s freezing in here.”
Rivka jumped up and began scouring the cypress branch and pomegranate away from the Artist’s shoulders. “Vesta, can’t you help? Can’t you see how she’s shivering?”
“You’ve got her covered, or uncovered, Rivka,” said Vesta, “you’re doing fine.” She leaned against the counter and started fiddling with the brushes again.
“Chad Vishneski,” I repeated. “Every time Nadia painted on the Artist here, Chad exploded. If all Nadia cared about was her sister, then I’m guessing Chad knew her sister, right?”
“You’re the person making up the story.” The Body Artist put on a camisole and then pulled a heavy sweater over it. “Something about Nadia bothered him so much he shot her, and it could have been her cunt, since that’s what most guys see when they look at a woman.”
“And so you display yours as a defiant statement: If that’s all you think I am, that’s what I’ll be?” I asked. “Nadia found you because you’d slept with Allie. But how did she learn about your affair?”
“She never said, or, if she did, it was after I stopped listening to her.” The Artist slammed her palm against the dressing table. “She was more fucked up than her sister, if that’s what you want to know. She pretended she wanted to have sex with me, when obviously she was a virgin or at least not a dyke, and backed away into a corner when I started kissing her. And then she laid this heavy trip on me about her sister as if it was me, not God, who chose Allie’s sexuality.” The Artist pushed her straggling hair into a clip. “I told Nadia to go home and get a dildo and leave me alone, but she kept coming back to the club and doing her stupid painting. I am so bored by her and her hang-ups, and her crush on her sister, I can’t tell you how uninterested I am in all those girls.”
“Right. Warm and fuzzy, you are safe from ever hearing that criticism from me.” I started to zip my coat. “What’s the story on Rodney? Why did Olympia insist that he draw his chicken scratchings, even tonight?”
“You’ll have to ask Olympia. I don’t understand why she does anything.”
“She’s in financial trouble, I gather?”
“Not my problem.” The Artist took off her thong and put on a pair of conventional underpants, then pulled her jeans up over her legs, interrupting Rivka’s efforts to finish cleaning them. “If you’re having fun, I hate to ask you to leave, because I am an entertainer and I like my audience to have a good time. But the evening is over.”
“Talking to you is definitely my idea of a fun-filled evening, but I’ll let you go home.” I opened the dressing-room door, then turned back. “There is one last question. What did your mother call you when you were born?”
The Artist had been buttoning her jeans, but her hands dropped to the side. She stood completely still, not speaking, until she realized her friends were staring at her with the same interest, or even astonishment, that I was showing.
“I don’t remember that far back,” she finally drawled. “But, going on experience, she probably said, ‘Here comes Trouble.’”
Rivka cackled in delight, but Vesta said, “Are you investigating Buckley? Why? Why, don’t you think Karen Buckley’s her real name?”
“She was part of the situation that got Nadia Guaman murdered, and I’m having a hard time getting any real information, either about Nadia or the people she was involved with. So I’m digging. And for all the public exposure of herself, the Body Artist is surprisingly modest about her past. Which makes me wonder whether she had a past under a different name.”
The Artist was listening to me, her lips curled in a sardonic smile. I’d been hoping to provoke a response, but whatever else she was, whoever else she was, she had schooled herself to reveal nothing.
“So what if she did?” Vesta persisted. “People change their names for a hundred different reasons, and none of them are any of your business. Especially since the police arrested the guy who shot her.”