The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [36]
Nada knew there was no more foolish pursuit than trying to convince another person you weren’t crazy. She peered through the dark and smoke for Kelvin at the other end of the bar and called for him voicelessly into the din.
To her surprise, Jameson wore a serious frown, as if he understood. “There’s a nomadic tribe called the Moken that lives on and between islands near Thailand and Burma. They are true Gypsies of the sea. Just before the deadly tsunami a few years back, a number of Moken fishermen sensed something was wrong, that the ocean was threatening. They headed for the safety of deeper water. Nearby, Burmese fishermen did nothing. When asked why they survived and the Burmese had not, the Moken said, ‘They don’t know how to look.’” He glared into Nada’s eyes for a moment; then he stood and pushed into the dense crowd. Nada lifted herself up so she could see. Jameson approached the table where the douchebag was leaning in toward the party girl and reached slowly between them with his right hand—gracefully, Nada thought—and pushed her drink off the table. The heavy glass thudded as it hit the carpet and splashed tequila and vodka and triple sec on their shoes. He made no effort to pretend it was an accident.
With her toggle, Nada silenced everything else in the room. There was a tunnel between her eyes and ears and that table.
“Hey!” the girl said, lifting her arms and examining the front of her tight blouse for stains. The boy rose from his chair tentatively. Jameson, half a head taller, reached into his pocket, removed a thick silver clip, and tossed a fifty onto the table. “Sorry,” he said, not looking away until the boy sat down.
Nada watched the girl say “Asshole.”
Jameson turned away without a word and returned to the bar. Douchebag studied the puddle on the floor. Party Girl snatched the fifty and slipped it into her purse.
As Jameson sat down again, Nada smiled at him and touched his sleeve. Now that was something like Solomon Gold would do. Nada asked herself if David Amoyo had ever shown that much faith in her. Not once, she realized, in their eighteen months together. And Jameson had known her for what? Twenty minutes?
She kept Douchebag in range of her senses. He was walking away from the table now, away from the girl. Jameson had earned her attention. “You were about to tell me what you wanted. At least I think you were.”
“As I was saying, I’ve made a lot of money and—”
“How?”
Jameson’s mouth hung open. He said, “Do you know what Eurodollars are?”
“No.”
“They are U.S. dollars deposited in foreign banks.”
“And you had a lot of these?”
“I never had any. I traded Eurodollar futures.”
“Which means?”
“I doubt you really want to know. Basically, I made bets on whether U.S. interest rates would go up or down.”
“So you’re a gambler?”
“In a manner of speaking, and a rather good one.”
She brought her glass to her lips, allowing him to continue.
“Anyway, I made enough money to retire and follow my true love.”
“Which is?”
“Art. As the daughter of an artist, you will understand the importance of this assignment.” He leaned closer. “The pieces I collect are not by trained artists. I’m mostly interested in intuitive art. ‘Outsider art’ some call it, although I’m afraid the phrase has become associated more with Grandma Moses than with Basquiat or Henry Darger.”
“Who?”
Jameson shook his head. Explanation was irrelevant. “There is a man in Chicago. He was homeless. Some say schizophrenic, although I’m not a psychiatrist. His name is Patrick Blackburn, but he calls himself ‘Burning Patrick,’ or at least that’s the name tattooed across his forearm. For a long time he made small amounts of cash painting objects that he’d found on the street or in the garbage. Some of these pieces were quite remarkable. A few years ago, Blackburn was ‘adopted,’ you might call it, by a group of rock musicians. They paid for his health insurance, tried to procure the treatment