999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [160]
“You should listen to what he says about that hospital,” Mrs. Angela said to me without taking her eyes off that painting of Grossvogel’s. “I’ve had a strong feeling about that place for a long time. There is some aspect of it that is extremely devious.”
“Dubious,” corrected the defrocked academic.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Angela. “It’s not by any means someplace I’d like to wake up and find myself.”
“I wrote a poem about it,” said the neatly dressed gentleman who all this time had been prowling about the floor of the gallery, no doubt waiting for the most propitious moment to approach the woman who owned or rented the storefront building and persuade her to sponsor what he was forever touting as an “evening of Hermetic readings,” which of course would prominently feature his own works. “I once read that poem to you,” he said to the gallery owner.
“Yes, you read it to me,” she confirmed in a monotone.
“I wrote it after being treated in the emergency room of that place very late one night,” explained the poet.
“What were you treated for?” I asked him.
“Oh, nothing serious, as it turned out. I went home a few hours later. I was never admitted as a patient, I’m glad to say. That place, and I quote from my poem on the subject, was the ‘nucleus of the abysmal.’ ”
“That’s fine to say that,” I said. “But could we possibly speak in more explicit terms?”
However, before I could draw out a response from the self-styled writer of Hermetic lyrics, the door of the art gallery was suddenly pushed open with a conspicuous force that all of us inside instantly recognized. A moment later we saw standing before us the large-bodied figure of Reiner Grossvogel. Physically he appeared to be, for the most part, much the same person I recalled prior to his collapse on the floor of the art gallery not more than a few feet from where I was now standing, bearing none of the traits of that moaning, delirious creature whom I had taken in a taxi to the hospital for emergency treatment. Nevertheless, there did seem to be something different about him, a subtle but thorough change in the way he looked upon what lay before him: whereas the gaze of the artist had once been characteristically downcast or nervously averted, his eyes now seemed completely direct in their focus and filled with a calm purpose.
“I’m taking away all of this,” he said, gesturing broadly but quite gently toward the artworks of his that filled the gallery, none of which had been sold either on the opening night of his show or during the subsequent period of his disappearance. “I would appreciate your assistance, if you will give it,” he added as he began taking down paintings from along the walls.
The rest of us joined him in this endeavor without question or comment, and laden with artworks both large and small we followed him out of the gallery toward a battered pickup truck parked at the curb in front. Grossvogel casually hurled his works into the back of the rented, or possibly borrowed, truck (since the artist was never known to possess any kind of vehicle before that day), exhibiting no concern for the damage that might be incurred by what he had once considered the best examples of his artistic output to date. There was a moment’s hesitation on the part of Mrs. Angela, who was perhaps still considering how one or more of these works would look in her place of business, but ultimately she too began carrying Grossvogel’s works out of the gallery and hurling them into the back of the truck, where they piled