From Newsweek
“That was a long time ago. I don’t think about it,” Malone claims. But if, according to the critics, his paintings celebrate life more than any artist since the Impressionists, one can’t help suspecting that the sensuality in his work is a reaction to the nightmare he barely survived on the night of December 20, 1989, during the U.S. invasion of Panama.
A painter who was once a military helicopter pilot – in the cutthroat competition of today’s art world, that dramatic juxtaposition between Malone’s violent past and artistic present accounts for part of his mystique. But while his Marine background is exotic to some patrons, it also initially made critics skeptical that his work had merit. As Douglas Fennerman, Malone’s art representative, points out, “Chase had to work twice as hard to earn his reputation. From that point of view, it doesn’t hurt to have a soldier’s background if you want to survive on the battlefield of the galleries in Manhattan.”
Certainly Malone looks more like a soldier than any stereotype of an artist. Six feet tall, sinewy more than muscular, he has a sun-bronzed face and ruggedly attractive features. Interviewed on the beach near his home on the Mexican resort of Cozumel, he had just completed his daily exercise of a five-mile jog coupled with an hour of calisthenics. His sandy hair, bleached by the Caribbean sun, matches the color of the beard stubble that adds to his rugged handsomeness. Apart from the paint smears on his T-shirt and shorts, there is no hint of his place in the art world.
He is thirty-seven, but it isn’t hard to imagine that he didn’t look much different in his lieutenant’s uniform ten years earlier when his helicopter gunship was shot down by a Panamanian rocket. That happened at 2:00 A.M. on December 20, and while Malone refuses to talk about the incident, Jeb Wainright, the copilot who was shot down with him, remembers it vividly.
“In the night, there were so many tracers and rockets flying around, not to mention flames shooting up from explosions on the ground, it looked like the Fourth of July. In hell. To soften everything up, we hit first from the air: 285 fixed-wing aircraft and 110 helicopters. Like a swarm of gigantic mosquitoes, with damned big stingers. Forty-millimeter Vulcan cannons, 105-millimeter howitzers, laser-guided antitank missiles. The works.”
One of the principal targets was the headquarters of the Panamanian Defense Forces, a factorylike building in a shanty section of Panama City, called El Chorrillo,“the little stream.” The enemy put its headquarters there, U.S. military planners theorized, so that Panamanian troops could use the twenty thousand people in El Chorrillo as a shield.
“And something like that happened,” Wainright continues. “When our choppers attacked the headquarters, the enemy ran for cover in the surrounding area. But we kept after them, and that’s when Chase started shouting into the radio to tell our command post that civilians were under fire. They sure were. Almost at once, five square blocks burst into flames. Command Central didn’t have a chance to respond before we were hit. I still remember my teeth snapping together from the explosion. Chase fought to keep control of the gunship. It was full of smoke, spinning and veering, all the while dropping. Chase is the best chopper pilot I ever saw, but I still don’t know how he managed to get us safely on the ground.”
The nightmare was only beginning. In the darkness, with the fire spreading from shack to shack, Malone and Wainright struggled to escape. As the twenty thousand residents of El Chorrillo swarmed in panic through a maze of alleys, Malone and his copilot were shot at by Panamanian forces as well as by U.S. gunships whose crews didn’t realize American fliers were on the ground.
“Then a bullet hit me in the leg,” Wainright says. “I have no idea from which side. While the civilians rushed past us, Chase rigged a pressure bandage on my leg, heaved me over his shoulder, and tried to get away from the fires. At one point, he had to use his service pistol against Panamanian soldiers holed up in a building. I later realized it took him until after dawn to get us out of there. We were slumped against a wall, soot falling all around us, when American tanks and flamethrowers showed up to level what was left of El Chorrillo. Two thousand civilians died that night. God knows how many were wounded. All twenty thousand lost their homes.”
Shortly afterward, Malone left the Marine Corps.
“Chase had always been drawing stuff when we weren’t training,” Wainright recalls.“Sometimes, instead of going on leave, he stayed in the barracks and worked on his sketches. It was obvious he had talent, but I had no idea how much until after he committed himself to trying to earn a living at it.That night in El Chorrillo, he made up his mind, and he never looked back.”
A viewer will find no hint of violence in Malone’s paintings.They are mostly colorful landscapes.Their vibrant details, which are reminiscent of van Gogh and yet distinctly his own, communicate a passionate joy in the senses, a thrill of sensual appreciation for the natural world that perhaps only someone who has survived a face-to-face encounter with apocalyptic violence and death could be moved to depict…
As waves lapped at Malone’s sneakers, the sunset reflected off the Caribbean, creating a hue that seemed never to have existed before. He was conscious of the gritty sand beneath his shoes, of the balmy breeze against his thick, curly hair, and of the plaintive cree-cree-cree of seagulls overhead. Raising his brush to the half-finished canvas, he concentrated to get it all in – not just the shapes and colors but also the sounds, the fragrances, and even the taste of the salt air: to attempt the impossible and embed those other senses in a visual medium so that the painting would make a viewer feel what it had been like to stand in this spot at this magical moment, experiencing the wonder of this sunset as if there had never been another.
Abruptly something distracted him. When Malone had been in the military, his ability to register several details at once had been a survival skill, but it was as an artist and not a soldier that he now noticed movement at the edge of his vision.
It came from his right, from a stand of palm trees a hundred yards along the deserted beach, near where the unseen dirt road ended. A shifting shadow became a squat man stepping onto the sand. The intruder raised a hand to shield his spectacles from the sunset’s brilliance and peered in Malone’s direction. As the man approached, his dark suit revealed itself to be royal blue. The black of his shoes was soon covered with the white of the sand that he walked across. His briefcase, a chalk gray that matched his hair, had bumps on it – ostrich skin.
Malone wasn’t puzzled that he had failed to hear the man’s car. After all, the roar of the surf on the shore was so strong that it obscured distant sounds. Nor was he puzzled by the intruder’s joyless clothing; even an island paradise couldn’t relax some harried business travelers. What did puzzle him, however, was that the man approached with a resolve that suggested he had come specifically because of Malone, but Malone had not told anyone where he would be.
He took all this in while appearing not to do so, using the need of tilting his head toward his palette to disguise his periodic glances in the man’s direction. As he intensified the scarlet on his canvas, he heard the intruder come so close that the crunch of his shoes was distinct.
Then the crunch stopped an arm’s length from Malone’s right. “Mr. Malone?”
Malone ignored him.
“I’m Alexander Potter.”
Malone continued to ignore him.
“I spoke to you on the phone yesterday. I told you I was flying in this afternoon.”
“You wasted your time. I thought I made it clear: I’m not interested.”
“Very clear. It’s just that my employer doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“He’d better get used to it.” Malone applied more color to the canvas. Seagulls screeched. A minute passed.
Potter broke the stalemate. “Perhaps it’s a matter of your fee not being sufficient. On the phone, I mentioned two hundred thousand dollars. My employer authorized me to double it.”
“This isn’t about money.” Malone finally turned to him.
“What is it about?”
“I was once in a position where I had to follow a lot of orders.”
Potter nodded. “Your experience in the Marines.”
“After I got out, I promised myself that from then on I was going to do only what I wanted.”
“A half million.”
“I’d been obeying commands for too long. Many of them didn’t make sense, but it was my job to follow them anyhow. Finally I was determined to be my own boss. The trouble is, I needed money and I broke my promise to myself. The man who hired me saw things differently than I did. He kept finding fault with my work and refused to pay me.”
“That wouldn’t happen this time.” Potter’s tie had red, blue, and green stripes, the banner for an Ivy League club that would never have asked Malone to join and to which he would never have wanted to belong.
“It didn’t happen then, either,” Malone said. “Believe me, I convinced the man to pay.”
“I meant that this time no one would find fault with your work. You’re too famous now. Six hundred thousand.”
“That’s more than any of my paintings has ever sold for.”
“My employer knows that.”
“Why? Why is it worth so much to him?”
“He values the unique.”
“Just for me to do a private portrait?”
“No. This commission involves two portraits. One of the subject’s face. The other full length. Nude.”
“Nude? Can I assume your employer is not the subject of the portraits?”
Malone was making a joke, but Potter evidently didn’t have a sense of humor. “His wife. Mr. Bellasar doesn’t allow even his photograph to be taken.”
“Bellasar?”
“Derek Bellasar. Is the name familiar to you?”
“Not at all. Should it be?”
“Mr. Bellasar is very powerful.”
“Yes, I’m sure he reminds himself of that every morning.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“How did you know I was here?”
The abrupt change of subject caused a shadow of confusion to glide behind Potter’s glasses. He raised his brow in what passed for a frown. “It’s hardly a secret. The Manhattan gallery that represents you confirmed what was in the recent Newsweek article. You live here on Cozumel.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“How did I know where to phone you?” Potter’s expression displayed total confidence again. “There’s no mystery. The article mentioned your passion for privacy, that you don’t have a telephone and you live in a sparsely inhabited part of the island. The article also mentioned that the only building near you is a restaurant called the Coral Reef, where you receive your mail and take your business calls. It was simply a matter of my being persistent, of phoning that restaurant until I happened to catch you.”
“That’s still not what I meant.”
“Then I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“How did you know I was here.” Malone pointed toward the sand at his feet.
“Ah. I see. Someone at the restaurant told me where you’d gone.”
“No. This afternoon, I came here on the spur of the moment. I didn’t tell anyone. There’s only one way you could have known – you had someone following me.”
Potter’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t even blink.
“You’re trouble,” Malone said. “Leave.”
“Perhaps we can discuss this over dinner.”
“Hey, what part of no don’t you understand?”
Potter was sitting at a table directly across from the entrance, staring as Malone stepped into the Coral Reef. The man’s solemn business suit contrasted with the colorful tops and shorts of the many tourists who had made the ten-kilometer drive from Cozumel’s only town, San Miguel, to visit this locally famous restaurant. Years ago, it had been no more than a beer and snack shop for divers attracted to the clear water of the nearby reef. But over time, the building and the menu had expanded, until the restaurant was now listed among the must-sees in every Cozumel travel guide. Potter had every right to be a customer, of course, but although the place was usually busy, Malone considered the Coral Reef to be his private refuge, and he resented that Potter had contaminated it.
Pausing, he gave Potter a long, hard look, then turned to Yat-Balam, the round-headed, broad-faced, high-cheeked Mayan proprietor. Softening his features, Malone said hello. He had never needed a lot of friends in order to be happy. An only child who had been raised by a single mother and who had been left alone a great deal as a child, he had learned to feel comfortable being alone, to be a good companion to himself. He didn’t feel isolated living away from the only town on this small island off the eastern coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Nonetheless, the restaurant had become important to him. He visited it every day. He had established a warm rapport not only with Yat but also with Yat’s wife, who was the cook, and Yat’s three teenage children, who were the waiters. Along with occasional visitors from the art world and Malone’s former Marine unit, not to mention divers who returned to the area often enough to be regulars, they fulfilled his social needs. Until three months ago, there had also been a woman, but that had ended unhappily, for she had definitely not enjoyed an isolated life, even if it was on a Caribbean paradise, and had returned to Manhattan’s art galleries and receptions.
After a few pleasantries, Yat said, “There is a man who has been sitting all evening but refuses to order anything except iced tea. He keeps staring at the entrance. He says he is waiting for you.” Yat directed his almond-shaped eyes in Potter’s direction.
“Yes, I saw him when I came in.”
“He is a friend?”
“A nuisance.”
“There will be a problem?”
“No. But I’d better get this settled so I can enjoy my meal. What’s the special for tonight?”
“Huachinango Veracruz.”
Malone’s mouth watered in anticipation of the red snapper prepared with green peppers, onions, tomatoes, olives, and spices. “Bring him one and put it on my bill. I’ll have the same.”
“I’ll get another place setting.”
“No need. I won’t be eating with him. Better bring us each a margarita also. I have a feeling he’s going to want a drink after I’ve finished talking to him.”
As Malone started past the busy tables toward Potter, Yat put a cautionary hand on his arm.
Malone gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. I promise, there won’t be trouble.”
The restaurant had an octagonal design, with thatched walls that stopped at waist level, allowing a view of the ocean. A full moon illuminated the surf. Over the bar next to the restaurant’s entrance hung a painting Malone had given to Yat, depicting the beach. Here and there, posts supported beams that spread out like spindles on a wheel and held up the round, tent-shaped thatched roof. The effect was spacious and airy, no matter how crowded the room was.
Potter hadn’t taken his gaze off Malone. Approaching, Malone decided that, on the beach, the sunset had made Potter look healthier than he now appeared. The pallor of his skin suggested that he was seldom out of doors. Behind his spectacles, his eyes had a grave expression.
“Join me.” Potter gestured toward the chair across from him.
“Afraid not. But I’ve taken the liberty of ordering for you. A specialty of the house. You’ll find it one of the most delicious meals you’ve ever eaten. This way, you won’t go back without getting something out of the trip.”
Continuing to fix his gaze on Malone, Potter tapped his fingers on the table. “I’m afraid I haven’t made it clear that failure to convince you to accept the commission is not an option. I cannot go back to Mr. Bellasar and tell him you refused his offer.”
“Then don’t go back. Tell him you quit.”
Potter tapped his fingers harder. “That is not an option, either.”
“Hey, everybody’s got job problems. It doesn’t matter how much he pays you. If you don’t like what you’re doing -”
“You’re mistaken. I enjoy my employment very much.”
“Fine. Then deal with his reaction.”
“It’s my own reaction I care about. I am not accustomed to lack of results. You must understand how serious this matter is. What can I give you to convince you to agree?”
“It’s the other way around,” Malone said. “If I took the assignment, I’d be losing the one thing that matters the most to me.”
“And what is that?” Potter’s gaze intensified.
“My independence. Look, I’ve got more than enough money. I don’t have to be at the beck and call of any son of a bitch who thinks he’s rich enough to tell me what and how to paint.”
Malone didn’t realize he had raised his voice until he noticed a silence around him. Turning, he discovered that the diners had stopped eating and were frowning at him, as was Yat, who stood in the background. “Sorry.” Malone made a calming gesture.
He turned back to Potter. “This is an extension of my home. Don’t make me lose my temper here.”
“Your refusal to take the assignment is absolute?”
“Have you got a hearing problem?”
“There’s nothing I can do or say to change your mind?”
“Jesus, isn’t it obvious?”
“Fine.” Potter stood. “I’ll make my report to Mr. Bellasar.”
“What’s your hurry? Enjoy your meal first.”
Potter picked up his briefcase. “Mr. Bellasar will want to know your decision as soon as possible.”
A quarter mile offshore, the occupants of a forty-foot sailboat anchored near the reef were more interested in the lights of the restaurant than they were in the moon’s reflection off the sea. While the four men studied the beach, they listened to a radio receiver in the main cabin. The transmitted voices were clear, despite the murmur of people talking and eating in the restaurant.
“I’m not close enough to hear what Malone told him,” a male voice said from the radio, “but Potter sure looks pissed.”
“He’s standing,” a female voice said. “He’s grabbing his briefcase. He’s in a hurry to get out of here.”
“Back to the airport would be my guess,” the thin-haired senior member of the team on the sailboat said. “We know how suspicious Bellasar is about telephones. He’ll want Potter to use the scrambler-equipped radio on the plane to get in touch with him.”
The female voice continued from the radio. “Rodriguez is posing as a cabdriver. He’ll follow the car Potter rented and find out what he’s up to.”
“In the meantime, Malone’s gone over to the guy who owns the restaurant,” the male voice said. “He seems to be apologizing. He looks annoyed with himself, but more annoyed with Potter.” For a moment, only the drone of the restaurant came from the radio. Then the male voice said, “He’s sitting down to eat.”
On the sailboat, the senior member of the team sighed in frustration. The bobbing of the craft in the water made him queasy. Or perhaps he was queasy from what he’d just heard. “That’s it for tonight, I’m afraid. The show’s over.”
“And Malone didn’t accept the offer,” the heavyset man next to him said.
“Just as you predicted.”
“Well, I was his copilot. I’ve kept in touch with him since we got out of the Marines. I know how he thinks.”
“He’s determined to be his own man? We might never have as good a chance as this. You’re the expert on him. How the hell do we get him to be our man?”
Tensing, Malone heard the roar before he veered his Jeep around palm trees and came within sight of his house, or what under usual circumstances would have been within sight of his house. The dust cloud that confronted him and the mechanical chaos within it were so startling that he braked abruptly to a stop, staring paralyzed at the haze-concealed dinosaurlike shapes of rumbling machines – bulldozers, one, two, three, Jesus Christ, half a dozen of them – tearing up the sand dunes and palm trees around his home.
When he had first seen this isolated cove on the eastern shore of Cozumel, he had known immediately that this was where he wanted to live. The calm waters on the opposite side of the island made that area more attractive for tourists and developers, which was fine with Malone, who wanted to be away from crowds. But the dramatic surf on this unprotected side, not to mention the remote intimacy of this rugged cove with its stretches of white sand punctuated by craggy black limestone, was irresistible to him. According to Mexican law, a foreigner could purchase land only after he or she obtained a permit from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the case of beach property, however, the situation was more complicated because the government needed to make certain that so precious a resource would be respected. Thus it had been necessary for Malone to purchase the property through a fifty-year trust agreement with a local bank, which retained the title and acted as a guardian of the beach. He had then hired a prizewinning Mexican architect to design the house. The attractive sprawling one-story structure was made from a normally unattractive substance, concrete, which was less affected by the region’s humidity than the upright wooden poles lashed together that formed the walls of many homes on the island. Every corner and edge of the concrete was contoured, eliminating sharp angles, softening its appearance. It was stuccoed a dazzling white, enhanced by numerous colorful flowering shrubs, and topped with a roof of thatched palm fronds, providing a traditional look. Several arches and courtyards allowed breezes to circulate freely, reducing the need for air conditioning.
But everything was changed now. The house was coated with a thick layer of grit thrown up by the bulldozers. A normally benevolent breeze was carrying the grit into the house. The sand dunes among which his home had nestled were flattened, carcasses of palm trees lying everywhere. And still the relentless bulldozers kept gouging and tearing, savaging the cove.
As Malone stared at the desecration, his paralysis broke. Furious, he leapt from his Jeep and stormed toward the nearest bulldozer, motioning urgently for the driver to stop. Either the driver didn’t see him, or else the driver didn’t care, for the bulldozer rumbled past Malone, ramming down another palm tree. With greater outrage, Malone charged after the bulldozer, grabbed a handhold on the side, pulled himself up, reached for the ignition key, and turned off the engine.
“Damn it, I told you to stop,” Malone shouted in Spanish.
The driver muttered an obscenity and grabbed Malone’s hand to try to get the key back.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” Malone demanded.
Cursing, the driver grabbed harder for the key.
Malone threw it into the sand.
At once the cove became silent as the other drivers, having seen what was happening, turned off their machines and jumped to the ground, racing to help their compatriot.
“Answer me!” Malone said. “What do you think you’re doing? This is my home! You don’t have a right!”
The other drivers flanked the bulldozer, two on one side, three on the other.
“Leave my brother alone,” one of them warned.
“You’re at the wrong place! I live here, for God’s sake. You’ve made a mistake!”
“The mistake is yours if you don’t get away from my brother.” The man scrambled onto the bulldozer.
“Listen to me.”
No. Spinning, the driver from whom he had taken the key aimed a fist at Malone’s stomach. With only slightly less speed than when he’d been in the military, Malone grabbed the man’s arm, yanked him from his seat, and hurled him off the bulldozer into the sand. In the same fluid motion, he ducked, avoiding the punch that the driver’s brother directed toward his face. Surging upward, he plunged his fist into his attacker’s solar plexus and flipped him after his brother. With a painful wheeze, the second man landed next to the first.
The remaining four drivers gaped, no longer certain how far they wanted to push this.
“Nobody has to get hurt!”
“Except you.” The first man struggled to catch his breath and stand.
“I’m telling you I don’t want to fight! Just stop while we figure this out! You’re not supposed to be here with this equipment!”
“The man who hired us was very specific,” one of the other drivers said angrily. “He led us to this property. We asked him about the house. He said the land belonged to him. He told us to level everything for a new hotel.”
“What man? Whoever it was didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. Did he give you his name?”
When Malone heard who it was, his chest heaved with greater rage.
ROBERTO RIVERA. BANK OFFICER.
Malone shoved the door open with such force, the frosted glass almost shattered.
Rivera, a lean man with dark hair and a thin mustached face, jerked his head up. The elderly client on the opposite side of his desk stopped in surprised mid-sentence and inhaled, making a strangling sound, as if he’d swallowed a peach pit.
“Señor Rivera, I tried to stop him,” the secretary insisted from the doorway behind Malone.
Malone fixed his gaze on Rivera. “My business couldn’t wait.”
“I’m calling the police.” The secretary swung toward the phone on her desk.
“Not just yet.” Rivera faced his client, who had recovered his breath but continued to look startled. “Señor Valdez, I apologize for the interruption. Would you please wait outside for a moment while I take care of this unpleasantness?”
As soon as the client left and the door was closed, Malone stalked toward Rivera. “You son of a bitch, why did you send those bulldozers to wreck my property?”
“Obviously there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Not according to the guys driving the bulldozers.” Malone’s muscles compacted with fury. “They were very clear – you sent them.”
“Oh, there’s no misunderstanding about that,” Rivera said.
“What?”
“I sent them all right.”
“You actually admit it?” About to drag Rivera from his chair, Malone stopped in amazement.
“Totally. The misunderstanding I referred to was your reference to the bulldozers being on your property. That section of land isn’t yours any longer.”
“You bastard, I paid for it.”
“In a trust agreement with this bank, which kept the title in its name. But we’ve had too many complaints about your eyesore of a house.”
“What?”
“And the rumors about drugs being smuggled ashore there can’t be ignored any longer. I spoke to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The trust agreement was revoked. I purchased the property.”
“Jesus Christ, you can’t do that.”
“But it’s already happened,” Rivera said. “Obviously, you haven’t picked up your mail yet, or you would have found the bank’s notice of termination.”
“I paid for that land!”
“You would also have found a check for the amount that you invested. I added – although I didn’t have to – a modest profit to compensate you for the increased market value of the property.”
“Compensate? You prick, you’re destroying my home.” Suddenly something one of the drivers had said struck him. “A hotel.”
“What?”
“You sold the property to a developer.”
“It was too good an offer to pass up.”
“It certainly must have been.” Malone grabbed him. “Well, it’s going to be awfully hard to spend the money when you’re in a wheelchair.”
“Call the police now,” Rivera shouted to his secretary in the other room.
Malone dragged him to his feet.
“Think twice,” Rivera warned. “In Mexico, there aren’t any prisoner rights. You’ll spend a long time in jail waiting for your assault case to go to trial.”
Malone drew back a fist. “It’ll be worth it.”
“And when you finally do go to trial, I assure you that Mexican judges take a harsh view of foreigners attacking respected members of the community.”
The secretary opened the door. “The police are on their way.”
“Thank you. Now it’s up to Señor Malone to decide whether they’re needed.” Rivera’s gaze was defiant.
“A respected member of the community.” Malone wanted to spit. In disgust, he lowered his fist. “Yeah, it must have been a damned good offer.”
“Blame the man who negotiated with me. He knows you. He insisted that I pass along his respects.”
“His respects? I don’t… What’s his name?”
“Alexander Potter.”
“Potter?”
“He said to tell you that his employer also sends his regards.”
The Coral Reef’s parking lot was empty. A taxi headed away, its passengers looking disappointed. Malone got out of his Jeep, crossed the sand toward the restaurant’s front door, and found a sign that read CLOSED. All the shutters were down.
He frowned. The silence from inside made the roar of the surf seem extra loud as he told himself that Yat had such a strong work ethic, the only reason he would close without warning would be that something had happened to him or his family.
He tried the door. It was locked. He pounded on it. No one answered. With long, urgent strides, he rounded the building and reached a back door that led to the kitchen. This door, when he tried it, budged open, leading him into the shadows of the cooking area, where the previous night’s savory odors still lingered. From last night, he emphasized to himself, for the several stoves were cold. There was no sign of any meal in preparation.
Beyond swinging doors, a troubled voice asked, “Who’s there?”
“Yat?”
“Who is it?” the voice demanded uneasily.
“Me, Yat. It’s Chase.”
“Oh.” One of the swinging doors came open, Yat’s round, pensive face peering through. “I thought it was another customer.”
Malone felt his chest turn warm from the compliment of being considered more than a customer. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” Yat assessed the word. “Everything.”
Beyond him, in the murky dining area, someone knocked on the front door. A second sequence of knocking, louder, ended with disappointed voices and the sound of a car driving away.
“At first, I explained to everyone who came that we were closed, but finally there were too many. It became too much.” Weary, Yat gestured for Malone to join him in the dining area.
To the right, on the bar, Malone saw a tequila bottle and a half-empty glass. “What’s the matter? Tell me.”
Yat stared toward the front door. “They kept wanting to know when the restaurant would be open again, and I couldn’t bear repeating so many times that I didn’t know. In the end, I finally just sat here and listened to them bang on the door.”
“You’ve got to tell me,” Malone said.
“A man came here this morning and offered to buy the Coral Reef for more money than I ever expected to see in a lifetime.”
Malone had a sick sinking feeling.
“I spoke to my wife and children about it. They work so hard. We all work so hard.” Yat shook his head, depressed. “It was too much to resist.”
“Potter,” Malone said.
“Yes, Alexander Potter – the same man who was here the other night. He said to tell you he sends his regards.”
“And those of a man named Derek Bellasar?”
“Yes. The Coral Reef is to remain closed indefinitely until Señor Bellasar decides what to do with the property.” Yat stared at his glass, picked it up, and took a deep swallow. “I should have thought about it longer. I should have waited before I signed the papers. Now I understand that the money means nothing if I don’t know what to do with my time. I didn’t realize until now how important coming here was to me.”
Yat’s use of the past tense was so poignant that Malone poured tequila into a glass. “I know how important it was to me.” When Malone swallowed the clear, sharp, slightly oily liquid, his eyes watered, but not just from the alcohol. He felt as if someone had died. Bellasar, you son of a bitch, I’m going to get you for this, he thought.
“I almost forgot,” Yat said. “You had a phone call.”
“What?” Malone wrinkled his brow. “From whom?”
“A man at the gallery in New York that sells your paintings. He said he had something important to talk to you about.”
With an even sicker feeling, Malone reached for the phone.
“You sold the gallery?” Malone dismally repeated what he had just heard.
“Hey, I’m as surprised as anybody.” Douglas Fennerman’s voice was faint, the telephone connection a hiss. “Believe me, it was the last thing on my mind. But out of the blue, this absolutely fantastic offer came in.”
“From a man named Alexander Potter, negotiating for someone called Derek Bellasar.”
“That’s a funny thing, Chase. Potter said you’d know who bought the gallery even before I told you the name. But just in case you didn’t, he said to make sure I passed along -”
“His regards.”
“Are you clairvoyant?”
“And Bellasar’s regards, also.”
“Amazing. Do you know these people well?”
“No, but believe me, I intend to.”
“Then everything’s going to work out. You and I go back so far, you’d have been the first person I called, even if Potter hadn’t suggested it. I want to tell you how honored I feel to have represented you.”
Malone felt a tightness in his throat. “If you hadn’t promoted me so tirelessly, I never would have had any breaks.”
“Hey, you’re the one with the talent. I’m just the messenger. But just because we’re not in business together any longer, that doesn’t mean we won’t still be friends.”
“Sure,” Malone managed to say.
“We’ll still get together from time to time.”
“… Sure.”
Doug sounded melancholy. “You bet.” He tried to muster his former enthusiasm. “And at least it won’t be like you’re in business with strangers. Since you and Potter and Bellasar are acquainted with one another, it’s something to build on. After you’ve worked with them for a while, you might even get to be friends.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You never know.”
“I do know.” Malone’s jaw muscles hardened.
“Well, you won’t be in business with them anytime soon,” Doug said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Bellasar plans a complete renovation of the gallery. All your paintings are being put in storage until the job’s completed.”
“What?”
“You’re going to be off the market temporarily. Could be a wise move. My guess is, once the gallery reopens, your work will increase in value because it’s been unavailable.”
Malone tightened his grip on the phone. “And my guess is, Bellasar will guarantee those paintings are unavailable for a very long time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Making Bellasar and Potter wish they’d never heard of me.”
“Wait a minute, Chase. Obviously, I haven’t been clear. There’s no reason to feel threatened. If there’s something you’re worried about, if you need to be reassured about something, just tell me. I’m meeting them Wednesday morning at an auction at Sotheby’s. I’ll pass your message along.”
Sotheby’s? Malone quickly calculated: Wednesday morning’s thirty-six hours from now. He gripped the phone so hard that his hand cramped.
“Chase?”
The husky shout made Malone turn from the suitcase he was furiously packing.
“Are you in there, Chase?”
Peering through a bedroom window, Malone saw a tall, heavy-chested man with short blond hair and a sunburned, big-boned face standing on the devastated beach.
“Jeb?” he yelled.
The big man chuckled.
“Jeb! My God, why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
“I can hear you, but I can’t see you, buddy. Where are you?”
“I’ll be right out!”
When Malone hurried from the house onto the back patio, Jeb Wainright broke into a grin. Thirty-seven, the same age as Malone, he wore sandals, baggy brown shorts, and a garish flower-patterned short-sleeved shirt that had its three top buttons open and showed the curly blond hair on his chest. His shorts revealed the bullet scar on his left thigh from the night Malone had saved his life after they’d been shot down during the Panama invasion. Even after ten years, he still had his military physique: broad shoulders, well-developed muscles.
“I knocked, but I didn’t get an answer.” Jeb grinned more broadly as Malone came toward him. His face was as craggy as the exposed limestone around him. “I started to worry that you didn’t live here anymore, especially after I saw all this.” He gestured toward the torn-up beach and the toppled palm trees. “What the hell happened? It looks like a hurricane hit this place.”
“It’s a land developer’s idea of civic improvements.”
“These aren’t the only changes. I drove past that fantastic restaurant we went to the last time. I figured we’d have dinner there, but it’s closed.”
“Courtesy of the same land developer. I don’t want to ruin my mood by talking about it.” Malone gripped Jeb’s shoulders. “It’s good to see you. How long has it been? At least a year?”
Jeb nodded. “And now I’m back for another diving vacation. Maybe a little windsurfing.”
“Where’s your stuff?”
“In a rented car out front.”
“I’ll help you carry it in. You’ll stay here, of course.” A troubled thought made Malone hesitate. “But you’ll have the place to yourself. You caught me at a bad time. I have to fly to New York tomorrow.”
“What? But I just got here. Can’t you put off the trip for a couple of days?”
Malone shook his head no. Anger quickened his pulse. “I need to settle a score with the guy who’s responsible for all this. You’ll understand when those bulldozers get cranked up again. You might even find yourself sleeping on the beach if they get orders to push these walls down.”
“As bad as that?”
“Worse.”
“Tell me about it.” Jeb pointed toward the beach. “Let’s take a walk.”
As they reached the pounding surf, Jeb scanned the horizon, making sure there weren’t any boats in view. After the demolition job the bulldozers had done, there weren’t any nearby places where someone could hide and aim a shotgun microphone at them. All the same, Jeb had to be cautious.
“It started with a guy named Potter,” Malone said.
“Yeah, I know about him.”
Malone turned to him in surprise.
“And I also know about Bellasar,” Jeb said. “The reason I wanted to come down to the water is, your house is probably bugged, but this surf is loud enough, it’s all anybody will hear if a mike is trained on us from a distance.”
“My house is bugged?” Malone looked as if Jeb spoke gibberish. “Why would -”
“Bellasar’s thorough. He would have checked you out before Potter approached you. And he would have kept the surveillance in place to monitor your reaction to what he’s done to you.”
“How do you -” Malone’s features hardened. “So. You didn’t just happen to show up for a vacation.”
“That’s right.”
“Then maybe you should tell me a couple of things, old buddy. Like, for starters, what in Christ are you really doing here?”
“I switched jobs since I saw you last.”
Malone stared and waited.
“I’m not in corporate security anymore. I work for a different kind of company.”
The word had implications. “Surely you’re not talking about -”
“The Agency.” Jeb held his breath, waiting for a reaction. This was the moment he’d been dreading. After his years in the military, Malone’s aversion to authority was such that if he thought he was being manipulated, friendship wouldn’t matter – he’d force Jeb to leave.
“Oh, that’s just swell,” Malone said. “Great. Fucking fabulous.”
“Now before you get yourself worked up, let me explain. How much do you know about Bellasar?”
Malone’s mouth twisted. “He’s a bully with too much money.”
“And do you know how he got that money?”
“Oil. Shipping. Widgets. What difference does it make?”
“Black-market weapons.”
Malone’s gaze intensified, his blue eyes becoming like lasers.
“Bellasar’s one of the three biggest arms dealers in the world,” Jeb said. “Name any civil war going on right now – they’re using Bellasar’s weapons to destroy each other. But he’s not just satisfied to wait for an opportunity to knock. If a country’s on the brink, he likes to send agitators in to bomb buildings, assassinate politicians, pin the blame on rival factions, and make the civil war happen. Thanks to him, Iraq got the technology to build a nuclear reactor capable of manufacturing weapons-grade plutonium. Ditto Pakistan and India. Ditto North Korea. He sold sarin nerve gas to that cult in Japan that let it loose in the subways as a dress rehearsal for taking out Tokyo. He’s rumored to be peddling nuclear weapons he got his hands on when the Soviet Union collapsed. He’s my personal candidate for world’s scariest guy, and if you think you can just fly to New York and ‘settle a score’ with him, as you put it, you’re going to find out what a hornet feels like when it gets splattered on the windshield of a car going a hundred miles an hour.”
Malone’s voice sounded like two pieces of flint being scraped together. “I guess you don’t know me as well as I thought.”
Jeb frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Have you ever known me to back off?”
“Never,” Jeb said.
“It isn’t going to happen this time, either. I don’t care how powerful Bellasar is. He isn’t going to get away with what he’s done to me. I had a good life here. It took a lot of effort to build it. And now the son of a bitch is destroying it, no matter what it costs him, just because he can’t stand anybody to say no. Well, he’s going to find out what no sounds like in thunder.”
“Hey, I’m not saying don’t get even. I’m on your side. Make him pay. What I am saying is, be smart about how you do it. Stick it to him where it really hurts.”
“And where would that be?”
“Accept the commission he offered you.”
The surf pounded. Nonetheless, a silence seemed to gather around them.
“Accept the…” Malone gestured as if the idea was outrageous.
“The Agency’s been wanting to get close to Bellasar for a long time,” Jeb said. “If we can find out what his plans are, we might be able to stop them. There’s no telling how many lives we could save. But Bellasar comes from a family of experts in survival. His father was an arms merchant. So was his grandfather and his great-grandfather, all the way back to the Napoleonic Wars. It’s not just his family’s business. It’s in his genes. He’s got an incredible sixth sense about avoiding traps and sniffing out surveillance. Every time we’ve tried to get somebody near him, we’ve failed. But now he’s handing us a chance.”
“This is a joke, right? You can’t seriously be suggesting that I cooperate with him.”
“With us.”
“And if Bellasar still has people watching me, he now knows someone from the CIA is trying to recruit me.”
“An old friend who showed up unexpectedly for a week of diving and windsurfing. As far as anybody can tell, I’m still in corporate security. When Bellasar checks me out, he won’t find any tie between me and the Agency. This conversation hasn’t tainted you.”
“I’m an artist, not a spy.”
“The thing is, I was hoping you’re still a soldier,” Jeb said.
“That was a long time ago.”
“You were too good at being a soldier ever to stop.”
“But I did stop, remember?” Malone stepped closer. “You should have been able to predict I wouldn’t ever let anybody tell me what to do again.”
The surf seemed to pound louder. Spray drifted over them as they stared at each other.
“Do you want me to leave?” Jeb massaged the bullet scar on his thigh.
“What?”
“Are we still friends, or should I find a place in town to spend the night?”
“What are you talking about? Of course we’re still friends.”
“Then hear me out.”
Malone raised his hands in exasperation.
“Please.” Jeb put a wealth of meaning into the word. “There’s something I have to show you.”
As the rented Ford jounced along a potholed road that led past vine-covered mahogany trees, Jeb checked his rearview mirror to make sure they weren’t being followed. He took his right hand from the steering wheel and gestured toward his suitcase on the backseat. “Look in the side flap.”
Despite his annoyance, Malone pivoted in the passenger seat and leaned back to unzip the flap. But what he found puzzled him. “The only thing in here is a magazine. Glamour? What does a fashion magazine have to do with anything?”
“Check the date.”
“Six years ago?”
“Now take a good look at the woman on the cover.”
More puzzled, Malone studied her. She was dressed in a black evening gown, only the top of which was visible. Its tastefully revealing bustline was highlighted by a perfect string of pearls, matching earrings, and an intriguing black hat with a wide, slightly drooping brim that reminded Malone of the sophisticated look costume designers had given movie actresses in the fifties.
“I didn’t know women wore hats anymore,” Malone said.
“It was a retro issue. Keep looking at her.”
The woman on the cover was a fiery brunette. She had a strong, well-toned presence that suggested she’d been swimming or jogging before she got dressed and made up. Even though she had been photographed only from the waist up, Malone had the feeling that she was tall and that her figure, when seen from feet to head, would be athletic and alluring.
He was reminded of Sophia Loren, and not just because she, too, was a voluptuous brunette with full lips and arousingly dusky eyes, but also because their skin color was the same, a smoldering earth color to which Malone had always been attracted. It made him suspect that the woman had something else in common with Sophia Loren – both were Italian.
The car hit another pothole.
“She’s Bellasar’s wife,” Jeb said.
Malone looked up in surprise.
“The woman whose portrait Bellasar wants you to paint,” Jeb said.
“I feel as if I’ve seen her before.”
“Because she was featured on about a hundred magazine covers, not to mention thousands of ads for lipstick, shampoo, eyeliner, you name it. Newsweek, Time, and People did articles about her. She had a best-selling bathing-suit calendar. She had a once-a-week fashion-tip segment on the Today show. She was so famous, all you had to do was mention her first name and people in the fashion industry knew who you were talking about. Sienna.”
“The color of her skin.”
“The first thing I thought of was the city in Italy,” Jeb said.
“You’re not an artist. Burnt sienna’s the most brilliant earth color, reddish brown and fiery.”
“Fiery. Yeah, that describes the impression she creates all right,” Jeb said. “She was as super as super-models get. Five years ago, she gave it all up.”
“Why?”
“Who knows? She was twenty-five, almost past the prime age for a model. Maybe she thought she’d get out while she was ahead. Or maybe she fell in love.”
“With Mr. I Won’t Take No For An Answer?”
“That could be exactly what happened. Maybe Bellasar wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“But now he wants me to paint two portraits of her, one of her face, the other full length? Nude? I get the feeling I’m missing something.”
“Yes.”
The way Jeb said it made Malone shift his gaze from the magazine’s cover.
“Bellasar was married three times before.”
Malone frowned.
“All of his wives were gorgeous, and all of them died young.”
“What?”
“The first lost control of her sports car and went over a cliff. The second broke her neck while skiing. The third drowned in a diving accident.”
“It sounds like it’s bad for a woman’s health to be Bellasar’s wife,” Malone said. “With a track record like that, who’d be foolish enough to marry him?”
“You’re assuming the other marriages were publicized. Bellasar’s a hundred times more sensitive about his privacy than you are about yours. In his case, it’s a survival trait. Believe me, the facts about his marriages and the subsequent quiet funerals are hard to come by.” Jeb paused to emphasize what he was about to say. “Before each wife died, Bellasar hired a noted painter to do a portrait of her.”
Malone felt a cold ripple along his skin.
“The paintings hang in a secluded room in Bellasar’s mansion in southern France. They’re a private collection of his trophies. He can’t stand imperfection. When his wives get to be about thirty, when they start to lose the bloom of youth and show the slightest blemish, a faint wrinkle around the eyes or an isolated gray hair that hints of aging, he wants nothing more to do with them. But his suspicious nature prevents him from merely divorcing them. After all, they’ve been around him too long. They’ve seen and heard too much. They could be a threat.”
“I don’t understand. If he knows he’s going to get rid of them, why does he take the trouble of marrying them? Why doesn’t he just ask them to be his mistresses?”
“Because he’s a collector.”
“I still don’t -”
“The way he looks at it, if he didn’t marry them, he wouldn’t own them.”
“Jesus.” Malone glanced down at the magazine cover. “And after they’re dead, he still owns them as portraits.”
“Painted by masters, their beauty immortalized, never aging,” Jeb said.
Malone kept staring at the magazine cover. “So now he’s getting ready to have this wife killed.”
“Sure looks that way to us.” Jeb let Malone think about it. “But if you go in and paint her, you might be able to figure a way for us to rescue her. The things she knows, she could be very helpful to us.”
Dusk cast shadows. The car’s headlights illuminated the vine-covered trees.
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m sorry this woman has a problem, but I don’t know her,” Malone said. “She’s a face on a magazine cover. She doesn’t have any connection with me.”
“But you can’t let her -”
“I don’t want to get mixed up with you guys.”
“Even if it’s a way to get even with Bellasar?”
“I can do that myself. I don’t need to let anybody use me.”
“I can’t believe your attitude. You’re just going to stand back and let her die?”
“Seems to me that’s what you’re doing,” Malone said. “Don’t push the responsibility onto me. I didn’t know anything about this woman until a few minutes ago. If you think she’s in that much danger, send in a team right now and grab her.”
“Can’t. The timing’s wrong. The moment we play our hand, Bellasar will tighten his security even more. We’ll lose our chance to get someone close to him.”
“So when it comes right down to it, you don’t care about the woman, either.”
Jeb didn’t respond.
“She’s only a device you’re using to try to recruit me,” Malone said. “Getting me in there to look around is more important than saving her.”
“The two go together.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned. I won’t be manipulated. I’ll get even with him on my own.”
“If you’d just listen to reason for a -”
“Damn it, you and Bellasar have something in common. You won’t take no for an answer.”
Jeb assessed him a moment. “So that’s how it’s going to be?”
“That’s how it’s going to be.”
“Fine.” Jeb’s voice was flat. He frowned toward the lights of San Miguel ahead of them. His voice became flatter. “I need a drink.”
“No hard feelings?”
“It takes more than an argument to end a friendship.”
But Malone couldn’t help feeling that the end of a friendship was precisely what had happened.
They headed along the main street of the picturesque town and stopped at a restaurant called Costa Brava across from the waterfront. All the while Malone drank a beer with Jeb, he barely tasted it. They both had trouble making small talk. The specialty of the house, a lobster dinner, was everything it should have been, but Malone couldn’t help wishing he was back at the Coral Reef. He was only now beginning to realize the full force of what he had lost.
They returned home earlier than they usually would have. Malone offered a nightcap, but Jeb excused himself, claiming travel fatigue. Malone went out to his shadowy courtyard and stared at the savaged dunes and palm trees. He slumped on a hammock, closed his eyes to the stars, and brooded about Bellasar, about the woman called Sienna and the death sentence she didn’t know had been given to her.
When he had first seen the magazine’s cover, the face on it had struck him as being commercially beautiful, no more than that. But as he had looked harder, he had begun to notice the subtlety around the lips, the nuance of the way she cocked her head and positioned her eyes. Her eyes. There was something about them – something in them – that spoke of a deeper beauty.
Now that face and those eyes hovered in his memory. He kept thinking about her fiery brown skin: burnt sienna, his favorite color. He dozed and woke several times, continuing to brood about the beautiful doomed woman he’d been asked to paint. In an uneasy state between sleeping and waking, he imagined her perfect sensuous features – imagined, not remembered, for it wasn’t the face on the magazine cover that occupied him. Instead, it was his conception of that face, his depiction of the beauty behind it, a beauty that would be destroyed if he didn’t help her.
And in the process, he’d be getting even with Bellasar.
At dawn, he was waiting outside when Jeb carried his suitcase from the house.
“I’ll do it,” Malone said.