Don't ask me how, but we gained access to the bank's vault, which was deep in the basement and lined with safe deposit boxes, and cold as all hell. We had the code to Zelda's deposit box, but it took us about twenty minutes to find it, and once we found it, I couldn't find the little yellow note with the code on it. I emptied all my pockets, Bill emptied his, Ada too. I looked in my wallet, in my socks (the place to hide valuable little things, my dad used to say). It had vanished. We didn't know what to do. I looked at Bill; Bill looked at Ada; Ada looked at me, and she began to shout, called me all kinds of names: poop face, pansy, ass wipe, ass hole, cunt, dimwit, dope, flake, goof, twit, twat, bozo, donkey, schmuck, dunce, fool, blockhead, coot, clit. Calling me names, I said, was not going to help us find that code. But maybe it did, because just then I found the little yellow note. It was in the back pocket of my pants. Funny how often that has happened to me: I'll lose something; to begin with, I'll empty my pockets; nothing; I'll keep looking; nothing; then I'll take a second look in my pockets, and bingo.
So I had the code, and I was at Zelda's safe deposit box. I punched the stupid code, and what do you know? It didn't open. Had I punched it again, and again it didn't open. Bill pushed me aside, said he would do it. I was beginning to take exception to this, the cussing, the shoving. "What the hell?" I said. Needless to say, he had as much luck as I'd had. If it hadn't opened at my command, twice, why would it open at his? Ada pushed him aside, and was about to attempt it once again, when who do you suppose shows up? Dana, the psychoanalyst, and she's yelling like a maniac: Don't you fucking touch that safe! Don't you fucking touch that safe! Don't you touch that fucking safe! Don't you fucking touch that fucking safe! Don't you fucking touch that fucking safe! Don't you fucking touch that safe! Don't you fucking touch that safe! These and many additional combinations on the theme.
I was stunned, I confess, by the woman's language. Ada was also stunned, and she let fall the yellow note. Bill said, "Will you please stop cussing, doc? It does not become you."
"You have no business opening that safe," she said.
"Oh yeah?" said Bill. "And you do?"
"I do," she said.
"And why is that?" he said.
"That's nobody's business," she said.
"Nobody's business?" he said, and pulled out his gun. "Don't you tell me my business, lady." He pointed the gun at the psychoanalyst and cocked it, and (teeth clenched) commanded: "Open it."
"Fuck you," she said.
"Louis," he said, "open the safe."
I picked up the note, and Dana, paying no heed to Bill's gun, leaped at me and kicked me in the teeth. She would have left me toothless had Bill and Ada not pulled the good lady back. I checked my mouth. I was bleeding, and one of my teeth was dangling. I pushed it back and again with my tongue, till it popped out of its socket. I caught it in my hand and put it in my pocket. I was beginning to get annoyed at these people, I can tell you. I clutched the yellow note, punched the code, including the last symbol, of which we had all failed to take notice. The safe went beep, then click, then it opened. Dana was yelling like a maniac again. Bill and Ada had to hold the good lady back, each by two limbs.
Well, what do you think? The fucking safe was empty. I said, "It's fucking empty," and checked to see if it actually was, stuck my head in and all. They let go of Dana, who was smiling smugly now. Bill pushed me aside and peeped inside. Ada pushed him aside and peeped inside. Without doubt, it was fucking empty. I'm telling you, I was definitely beginning to get annoyed. I said, "Will you people please stop shoving me? What the fuck?" A little shocked, Bill looked at me, then at Ada; Ada at me, then at Bill; and they smiled in tandem.
All the way to Bill's studio in Chelsea I was anxious, about to lose it. I thought it might the cocaine, still in my blood, maybe the potion that Chinaman gave me way back--when was that? Anyway, I was mad as all hell. I didn't think I had it in me to get that mad; but these people, the empty safe, the dolls, one dead end, a second dead end, and so on and so on and so on; it was all becoming agonizingly silly. I had to ditch them. They had no clue about anything, and they kept smiling smugly. That's what maddened me the most. I had Zelda's list now. I could consult additional people, see what they had to say.
Bill's studio was immense and magnificent, a depot of statues, paintings, antiques. I could even identify a couple of them: Gauguin's Two Tahitian Women, Manet's Boating. I asked Bill if it was all genuine. It couldn't have been. He said obviously it was all genuine and I a dunce, and he smiled smugly. And Ada smiled smugly. Even Dana smiled smugly, even as she was being handcuffed to one of the stone statues.
Ada and Bill began to question handcuffed Dana. What did she know about Zelda? What had become of the contents of the safe deposit box? How was she, Dana, involved? And so on. Dana did not budge. They attempted all kinds of cajoling techniques: sweet-talk, blackmail, slapping, cuffing, spanking, shaming, cutting, shunning, tickling. But she would not budge. Bill and Ada seemed to be enjoying this, and I suspected Dana did as well. It was all quite twisted. I was beginning to lose my patience; I knew I was going to lose it completely any minute. But I've got a method of staying calm. I count sheep. I counted about a thousand sheep, and Dana was still keeping that smug mouth shut. That was it. Enough was enough. I got up. I told the two to move aside and let me handle this. They told me to shut up and sit down. I told them I'd been sitting down long enough, and I wanted to know what the fuck was going on. They said they also wanted to know.
I said to Bill, "How do you know Zelda?"
He said, "I ask the questions, buddy. This is my studio."
I said, "What do you do with all these paintings?"
He said, "That's my business."
I said, "What is that business?"
He said that was none of my business. I insisted it was. He told me to shut up and sit down if I didn't want to be plugged full of lead. I said fine and sat down. He saw me sit down and he laid his gun on the pedestal of one of the statues.
I leaped up and seized that gun, cocked it, and waived it at him and at Ada, and commanded in a voice that astonished even me, so deep and menacing it was, like me in slow motion, but mean: "Someone tell me what the fuck is going on because I will happily kill you all if you won't. I want to know how all you fucks know Zelda. I want to know what's become of Zelda. I want to know what you people do." And so saying, I shot at the ceiling, but somehow (don't ask me how exactly; maybe it bounced), the bullet hit the statue to which Dana was handcuffed, hit it in the head, which exploded into a million bits. Dana began to shout like a maniac again, saying she had gone blind, gone blind, gone blind.
What the fuck did that lady know about going blind? I shot a second time. I meant business.
Finally, Bill opened up. "Stop!" he squealed. "Don't shoot. I'll tell you all you want to know."
"Tell me," I commanded.
"What do you want to know?" he said.
"I want to know what's become of Zelda," I said. "How is she connected to you people?"
"She vanished," he said.
"Why?" I said.
"She took a good chunk of the money and she vanished," he said.
"What money?" I said.
"We've got a business," he said.
"What business?" I said.
"A money-making business," he said.
I shot again at the ceiling. This idiot was taking his sweet time. "And how," I gently asked, "do you make money?"
"We steal paintings," he said, "and substitute them with fakes. We sell the authentic ones. Sometimes we sell the fake ones, when we can't get to the authentic ones. It's almost impossible to tell. We employ one of the best people in the imitation business, Abe Egan. A genius. You should meet him. A sweet man, a lovely, lovely man, exceptionally modest, honest too in his own wicked way. I sometimes ask him why he didn't become--"
"Fuck that," I said. "Who's the boss of this scam?"
But he fell silent, gaped, seemed to be looking at someone behind me. Slowly, my gun still pointing at Bill and Ada, I swiveled my head to see what was behind me. I saw a hat, a floating hat, behind a statue, a Panama hat with a blue band. I called to it: "Come on in, hat." A man came into view, a middle-aged gentleman in a blue suit, a bit heavy, a pipe in his mouth, smiling smugly like all these people, till he saw my gun.
