Angels in Heaven

of?”
    “Money,” I said. “Lead, granite. How
would I know?”
    “It feels like gold,” he said.
    “You, Mr. Lubinski,” I said, “have my
undivided attention. How can you tell?”
    “It weighs like it,” he said. “You
could make sure by liquid displacement.”
    “Liquid? What liquid?” I said. “Name
it. Have I got liquids.”
    “Jewelers’ scales you won’t have,” he
said. “You could also maybe find out like this.”
    He took out a tiny one-bladed silver
penknife that was on his key ring and carefully scratched a small bit of the
black paint off the base. He showed me the result, a glint of gold, or gold
color anyway. I remembered Billy’s words and felt like I’d discovered the Comstock Lode.
    “Of course, unfortunately, all is not
gold that is golden,” he said. “Stick it in a mild paint solvent and see what
happens.” I dunked it in a jar of turps the painters had left behind a while
back when my office was being redone after the fire. Then I rinsed Shorty off
under the hot water tap in the bathroom, paying particular attention to behind
his jugged ears. When I took it back to Mr. Lubinski, he screwed a loupe in one
eye and gave Shorty the once-over. After a minute he winked at me with his
nonlouped eye and said, “This I can tell you: copper it isn’t.”
    Bit two (five days a. g.): Postcard from Doris, sent from Isla Mujeres. On one side was a picture of a ruined garden in which there
was a large tombstone. On the other: “Tomb of a pirate we saw who died here of
love. Tombstone reads: ‘What I am, you shall be. What you are, I was.’ Neat,
eh? XXX Dumb Doris. P.S.—Lost a fortune of your money gambling last
night at the casino. Ha-ha!”
    What a twerp. Even I knew there was
no casino on Isla Mujeres. But wasn’t there one in Cancún?
    Bit three (two months a. G.): Postcard from John Brown,
aka Gray Wolf, aka Billy Baker, aka slickest escapologist since Zsa Zsa Gabor.
The card pictured “El Rey Motel, U.S. Highways 60 and 70, Globe, Arizona. 24 units, Air Conditioned, Fully Carpeted, Tubs, Garages, Room Phones
& Patio.”
    “Had any good luck recently? See ya
afore too many wanings of too many moons, Gray Wolf.”
    Piece two (ten days a. g.): Discovered on the floor of my
office with the rest of the junk mail but delivered by hand:
     
    Extract from a soon to be published
diary
    By
    Sara Silvetti, Poetess Extraordinaire
     
    ... purple bougainvillea ’gainst a white-washed wall...
    one-eyed chameleon frozen by cruel history’s pace...
    chameleon speak with forked tongue also, Running Deer.
    I am aware
    Of my body tonight as hummingbirds hover like minute helicopters
    In the lukewarm air.
    I have never really been anywhere
    Till now. Studio City isn’t anywhere.
    Davis CA isn’t
anywhere. They are but wounded moles,
    They pain but do not soar.
    Nor, as yet, as yet, the painted whore
    in the graffitied door.
    Bald is beautiful. Hair is for the bears.
    Let’s go a-wanderin’ agin sometime, Prof,
    Let’s take off
    Let’s shake off the sandaled shackles of afternoon duties,
    Herbal teas and nonfat cheese,
    Diet life and designer blah,
    The freeway leads nowhere but to the grave
    Of some unknown brave.
     
    Well! Not too bad, the twerp was
actually improving. Listen, I was glad. After considerable thought, I gave her
a D minus. I wondered briefly what her next metamorphosis was going to be—Hare
Krishna, maybe; she was already bald. And nothing could be worse than punk.
    Piece three: If you would all please put your
specs on— mine were already starting to scratch up, I noticed, because I
refused to pay ten bucks extra when I bought them to have a nonscratch
treatment—and then retrieve from the coffee table your Sotheby’s (the
auctioners) winter catalogue for 1987. Turn to page nine, item 192. You will
read the following: “Mayan statuette [aka my Shorty!] circa 1100. Gold. Height,
10 cms. 48 mm. Unique. Believed depiction of a worshipper of ‘God Deer.’
Estimate — $25,000 to $27,000.”
    Benny, who knows about such things,
informed me that an auction house’s estimates are generally well below the
final selling price. I did not argue the point. I wondered how many more
contraband Shorties Billy was sitting on patiently in Globe, Arizona, not that
he would still be there. I hoped he had the sense not to flood the market. You
know what that does to prices in the art world.
    Bit four (twelve days a. g.): Postcard from Milwaukee, of the downtown area seen by