Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Caleb stood just inside the entrance to the invitation-only showing and tried to determine why the exhibition disturbed him.

The venue was wrong. The genteel Michigan Avenue museum, with its wood-paneled, marble-tiled foyer and carpeted galleries, was too conservative, too traditional for the works of "Navajo Artist, Blue Mountain Cat." They should have been displayed in the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The pieces ranged from retail-store cases of exorbitantly priced Indian "artifacts" to what the catalog described as "installation art." This seemed to refer to anything that didn't fit a familiar category, including groups of painted mannequins outrageously dressed. The collective impression was Andy Warhol meets Jonathan Swift in Indian country, and with the exception of the small oil, a desert landscape that Caleb had loaned the show, the pieces were grossly different from what he'd previously seen of the artist's work. They were out of touch with Nature and lacked the harmony and balance that was the Navajo way. Not that they were out of balance artistically. But they were slick, things an interior designer would use as props — what a skeptic would call pricey, without being lovely or loving. They were nothing like the playful, joyous things the artist had done when he was a student, works he'd signed "David Bisti."

All the works except the landscape were identified with a stylized cougar curled into the blue triangle of a stylized mountain. They were cynical. Shocking. Satirical. They mocked their audience and their subject matter — things Western and Indian. Caleb wondered why.

Behind him, echoing his thoughts, Anita Margolis said, "Nothing short of a brain transplant could explain it."

Anita had given David his first break, his first professional showing. But measured by these pieces, that show in her Michigan Avenue gallery was a light-year distant.

She said, "What sort of monster have I created?"

Caleb turned and smiled. She was especially lovely with her dark hair swept up, pinned with diamonds, her black dress and jewelry elegant in their simplicity.

A waiter appeared with a tray of champagne in tulip glasses. Caleb accepted two and handed one to Anita.

"Honestly," she continued, "how could he?"

"Perhaps the man who's been living for his art just decided he'd like to make a living."

As the waiter moved away, a voice behind Anita said, "What do you think?"

They both turned to look at the speaker, a tall man, black eyed and dark skinned. He was dressed in a fringed, white buckskin shirt, black Levi's, and pale gray cowboy boots. His straight, black, shoulder-length hair was held in place with a headband that had Indian motifs painted on leather. The same slick style as the show. Designer Indian. In fact, the whole man seemed as carefully crafted as an ad from GQ.

"I think you'll make a lot of money, David," Anita said.

He gave her a dazzling smile and kissed her hand. Corny as it was, Caleb thought, the kiss was probably the most genuine thing about the exchange.

"A diplomat," David said. His smile faded as he realized the implication of her statement. Then he noticed Caleb and smiled again, extending his hand. "Doctor."

Caleb shook it. "David."

An unpleasant voice from behind them interrupted. "Bisti!"

David turned, and all three watched a heavy man charge up to them. He was over six feet tall, with a flushed face and stony expression.

David's body language spoke alarm, momentarily, then caution. "I'm afraid you have the advantage."

"You ought to know a man before you libel him!"

"Ah. I take it you don't care for my art?"

"Art? Bullshit!" The man's face darkened a shade, and white blotches marked the tension locking his jaw.

Behind Caleb, Anita whispered, "Harrison Wingate."

Wingate was graying, and muscular under the overweight. His silk shirt, expensive suit and shoes, and the $200 tie said money; the way he moved in them said power.

Caleb shifted so that Wingate could see Anita better, and the big man nearly choked. "Excuse me, ma'am. I beg your pardon."

There was a faint drawl to his voice that hadn't been there when he spoke to David. He ignored Caleb and glared at the artist. "You'll be hearin' from my attorney." He nodded at Anita and said, "Ma'am." He nearly knocked a waiter over as he stalked away.

Before David could explain what that was about, a woman's voice spat, "You unmitigated bastard! How can you have the nerve to call yourself a Navajo?"

Odd, Caleb thought.

The speaker was six inches shorter than David, oval faced, with the dark eyes and high cheekbones of a Native American. Her plain blouse and suit accented her jewelry — traditional squash-blossom necklace, assorted silver rings and dangly earrings. Her long, heavy hair was pulled back and pinned with a silver brooch. "You insult us with this trash!"

According to the catalog, the installation she referred to was Native American Gothic, a burlesque of Grant Wood's classic. In this version, a pair of dark-skinned department-store dummies — crudely whitewashed and dressed in business attire — stood in front of a cardboard-cutout hogan adorned with a gaudy, stained-glass Sacred Heart. The male figure wore a suit and, instead of a pitchfork, carried a lance strung with crude imitation eagle feathers. In his other hand, he held a skull — taboo among the Navajo — onto which rhinestone tears dropped from his cheeks. The skull was tagged: "Genuine Indian artifact, $2000.00." The female figure was painted like a cheap whore and offered the viewer a hip flask of Old Grand-Dad priced at "1/10,000 of a soul." A mirror behind the figures enabled viewers to see themselves gawking and to notice that the whitewash and the costumes of the two figures covered only their front sides.

"Wolf-man!" the silver woman spat.

David seemed more amused than offended. "It's not real, Irene." He walked over to pluck the skull from the hand of the mannequin, grasping it by the crown and upending it. "See," he said and thrust it at her. "Made in U.S.A."

Caleb edged closer. He would have sworn the skull was genuine. He held a hand out. "May I?" David shrugged and handed him the skull, the lower jaw of which was wired in place.

It was neither plaster nor plastic as far as Caleb could tell. He tapped its cranium with a knuckle and judged by the sound that it was real bone or a marvelous approximation. The words "Made in U.S.A." were incised near the foramen magnum, but Caleb sensed that they were meant ironically, not literally.

It didn't seem a good time to say so. David had tensed, subtly, as if waiting for Caleb to make a liar of him. Caleb returned the skull without comment.

The artist replaced it in the installation, then lifted a champagne glass from the tray of a passing waiter and offered it to Irene. She took the glass and very deliberately dribbled its contents over the skull.

Suddenly, the museum's special-activities director slipped into the room and stopped before the Indian woman. "Miss, may I see your invitation?"

She gave him a sarcastic smile and handed him a newspaper clipping from her purse.

"This won't do, miss. I'm sorry."

"I'll bet you are."

"Come with me, please." He stepped closer to her and signaled a security guard, who moved smoothly to her other side. Neither man touched her, but she was clearly in custody.

She scowled at Bisti. "I haven't finished with you."

"Whew!" Anita said when the trio was beyond hearing.

Caleb smiled. "David, you seem to be suffering the same fate as Mr. Swift."

"The man the Irish hated because they didn't understand his Modest Proposal," David asked, grinning, "and the English hated because they did?"

The gallery was imperfectly reflected by the window that formed its east wall. Traffic and passersby on Michigan Avenue below showed like a double exposure through images of the moneyed set dressed to impress.

Caleb turned away from the outside view and his own distorted image. At his left, Anita leaned back against the window's guard rail and pointed to a small enclave by the elevator. "The lady with the politicians swarming around her is Lauren Bisti, David's wife."

He looked. He didn't know enough about women's fashion to recognize the work of a particular designer, but even from across the room, he knew class when he saw it. Lauren Bisti's dress was class. It wasn't trendy or titillating, but it flattered her in every way a garment could. She herself was tall and slim and naturally blond. And socially adept, he realized as he watched her handle an alderman and a senator.

They were discussing an installation titled Red Man's Revenge, which consisted of three white-skinned mannequins playing bingo.

Caleb studied the faces of Lauren Bisti and her entourage. Their discussion was animated by expressive body language, including wide crocodile smiles.

Anita touched his arm. "What do you suppose they're saying?"

"Probably something along the line of 'Your husband is the greatest artist alive, Mrs. Bisti.'"

"And what do you suppose they're thinking?"

They both laughed.

"Dog people," Anita said. It was shorthand for a social theory Caleb had developed — that people could be divided, roughly, into dog people, who are like canines in their need for adulation and reassurance, and cat people, self-motivated and largely impervious to social pressure. "How would you classify David?"

Before he could answer, a dark-haired woman approached them with an attractive man in tow. "Excuse me," she said. "Aren't you Anita Margolis?"

Anita turned to her and smiled.

"I'm Amanda Kent," the woman continued, pushing the man at Anita. "This is my husband, Todd."

Todd Kent held his hand toward Anita and said, "Enchanté, Ms. Margolis."

"Anita. Please," she said.

"Todd is David's business manager," Amanda offered. She was beautiful the way fashion-magazine models are, with a face so flawless it might have been airbrushed on. But she gave the impression that her personality had only the depth of a glossy photograph.

Anita nodded, acknowledging the information, then indicated Caleb. "This is my friend, Jack Caleb. He's a patron."

"Jack," Kent repeated. "A patron." He pulled a sheet of paper, folded in three, from an inner jacket pocket and presented it to Caleb. "Then you'll definitely need one of these."

It was a price list for works in the exhibit. As he looked it over, Caleb wondered what the museum management thought of it. The glossy, official brochure didn't have prices, just artsy descriptions of the works and an insufferably flattering bio of the artist. In fact, the brochure didn't even indicate the pieces were for sale. Caleb refolded the list and put it in his pocket.

"You're not related to the Dr. James Caleb who loaned us the landscape?" Kent asked. He wasn't as beautiful up close as he'd first appeared, his features having been artfully rearranged. He had flawless teeth but thinning hair, and he wore tinted contact lenses.

"I'm he," Caleb told him. He could see Kent wonder how one got Jack from James and decide not to ask.

"Well it was very good of you. That painting tipped the balance in favor of the museum board allowing this exhibition."

I'll bet it did, Caleb thought. It may have been the only example the board had seen of David's recent work. He said, "Glad I could be of help."

Kent responded with the sort of smile that signals inattention. He was watching Lauren Bisti or the politicians. Caleb wasn't sure which.

When one of the waiters interrupted Lauren Bisti's conversation by offering the group champagne, Kent took the opportunity to excuse himself and his wife and went to join the higher-status party.

As soon as they were out of hearing range, Anita said, "Rrruff!" Three

"Jack, darling!"

The man who slipped his arm through Caleb's irritated the doctor immensely. Ivan — pronounced EEE-VON — was a man for whom the clichés about catty, hostile gays had been invented. He seemed to have absorbed all the stereotypes and refined and perfected them until he presented a caricature so exaggerated that everything about him seemed to say, You can't take this seriously. Caleb suspected that he used this persona to manipulate those with whom he had business — sometimes to enrage them, occasionally to distract them from the negotiations at hand.

Ivan persisted. "What do you think of the pièce de résistance?"

"I'm not sure I've seen it," Caleb said as neutrally as possible. To show the man annoyance was to invite further provocation.

Ivan prodded Caleb's upper arm with the outstretched fingers of his free hand, ending the gesture with fingers splayed and wrist limp. "Dear, you must!"

Caleb firmly disengaged his arm and turned to get Anita's reaction, unequivocally calling Ivan's attention to her presence. It was a gesture. Ivan, who missed nothing, was well aware of her.

Anita took Ivan's arm and squeezed it. "Ivan, your misogyny is showing."

He gave her a beatific smile. "Nothing so sinister, my dear. Just jealousy. You've managed to nab the second most beautiful man here."

"Only the second?"

"By definition, the guest of honor ..." Ivan gave an exaggerated sigh of longing that was intended to mock as well as flatter, then flounced off.

Anita said, "What would he do if you took him up on one of his propositions?"

"That's not something I'm curious enough about to try."

The museum's architecture was peculiar. Two adjacent commercial buildings, with floors at differing heights, had been connected by a series of gently sloping ramps. The different levels divided the museum's three floors into relatively intimate galleries. And soft gray carpet underfoot furthered the feeling of coziness.

When they'd finished studying Red Man's Revenge and Native American Gothic in the gallery above the lobby, Caleb and Anita took the elevator — paneled with wood and large enough to accommodate a baby grand or a busload of art patrons — to the topmost of the two floors occupied by the Blue Mountain Cat show.

"When we've exhausted the possibilities here," Caleb told her, as they left the elevator, "we'll have gravity on our side getting to the next."

One of only two exhibits in the upper gallery, Reverence for the Past was an ancient-looking bone knife thrust through a bundle of currency, a bill of sale, a certificate of authenticity, and the sternum of a skeleton half buried next to a black-and-white ceramic bowl in a wooden crate of sand. There was only one other person in the room. Caleb recognized him, a professor from the University of Chicago: Matthew Dennison, PhD.

"I'd think this wasn't your métier, Dr. Dennison."

Dennison looked more like a golf pro — fit and tan — than an aging professor. He seemed startled. "Do I know you?"

"No reason you should. I attended one of your lectures. 'Peoples of the Southwest.'"

"Ah, yes." Dennison raised his eyebrows.

Waiting for an introduction, Caleb decided. "I'm Jack Caleb. This is Anita Margolis." When they'd completed the requisite handshakes and inanities, Caleb asked, "Are you branching out into contemporary Indian art, Doctor?"

"Hell, no —" He remembered Anita and said, "Er, excuse me."

She muttered, "People seem quite concerned, this evening, about offending my sensibilities."

"I heard a rumor," Dennison told Caleb, "that Bisti uses Anasazi artifacts to make his junk. That, for example —" He pointed to the bowl in the sand.

So much for art appreciation.

"That's illegal!" Anita said.

"Not if the piece was found on private property. Or the seller is willing to swear that it was. To read some of the affidavits, there are entire Anasazi cities buried on some private properties."

The catalog was ambiguous on the subject, saying only that the bowl was Anasazi.

"I doubt he uses genuine pieces," Anita said. "I've been offered a few from time to time. They're horribly expensive."

Genuine or ingenious? Art or artifice? Caleb was sure the ambiguity was intended.

They left Dennison studying the bowl and drifted into the next gallery, a mezzanine overlooking the floor below.

"This must be what Ivan was referring to," Anita said, pointing. Progress.

---

Excerpted from "The Death of Blue Mountain Cat"
by .
Copyright © 1996 Michael Allen Dymmoch.
Excerpted by permission of Diversion Publishing Corp..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---