Bridge of Sighs

able to throw myself into the lagoon.” Which from the roof of the present studio he could, if he got a good running start. After New York, he now realized, he’d have a better idea of how close he was to finished.
    “You
do
know that they’re wetting themselves at Columbia over the possibility of your doing their residency? Did you even look at the material?”
    Noonan nodded.
    “A nice apartment comes with the gig. Also, I’ve been personally assured you’d have talented students.”
    “The worst kind,” Noonan said. “They suck the very life out of you. Unless you tell them to fuck off and leave you alone, and then you feel guilty.”
    “When have
you
ever felt guilty?”
    “Okay, so it’s a theory, but one I’ve no desire to test.”
    “So you’re broke.”
    Quite possibly, and perhaps even relevant. Still…“Then there’s the IRS. If
they
discover I’m in residence, the bastards will garnish my wages for back taxes.”
    “If they discover you’ve visited, they’ll take your gallery sales, as well,” Hugh pointed out, not unreasonably.
    “They’re worried about terrorists now, not painters. Anyway, I think I’ll stick to the original plan.”
    In and out in two days. An art day, with the obligatory Brie, overchilled white wine and endless obsequious introductions, until it all became insupportable and Noonan ducked out the back and into the nearest tavern for some serious drinking, then a diagnostic day, a full battery of tests at Sloane-Kettering before the very next flight back to Venice with no one the wiser, leaving the victim to await the reviews, sales, blood work and possibly biopsy all by himself. Exhausting even to contemplate. The plane out would be the worst of it, strapped into a seat, while trying in vain to anesthetize himself with free booze in first class—thank you, Hugh, for this, at least—and overcome the rising panic in the aisles, probably crawling out of his skin by the time they touched down. What if this experience was so bad he couldn’t summon the courage necessary to board the return flight?
    Feeling the dread rise, Noonan turned, half expecting to hear himself declare that he’d changed his mind and to hell with the show, but Hugh wasn’t there. He’d gone back across the room, where he’d again undraped the painting on the easel. “Why paint something no one will ever buy, that’s what I’d like to know. It’s lunatic. You should stop painting this. I mean it. In fact, I forbid you to continue. Let’s burn it right now, shall we?”
    Like all art dealers, Hugh believed himself to be an integral part of the creative process. As if it would be foolish for any painter to embark on new work without first conferring with the man who would later sell it. He didn’t really want Noonan to stop painting it, of course. Though unfinished, it was still the best canvas in the room, and Hugh had to know it. Even as he suggested the painting wasn’t salable, he was busy coming up with a plan to do just that. What he was really after was the story behind it. People who bought art at these prices were hungry for back-story, gossip they could repeat to their friends. Here, Hugh could explain, was one of Robert Noonan’s final canvases, begun when he’d first become aware of the illness that would eventually kill him. Ka-ching!
    Talk. Vital to commerce. The end of art.
    “Okay, I’ll stop,” Noonan said cheerfully, draping the canvas again.
    Hugh didn’t believe this for a second, but of course pretended to, clinking Noonan’s glass with his own to make it official. “I can see why you didn’t want to share this. It’s excellent.”
    “I was just wondering if it was corked,” Noonan said, holding the wine up to the light again. After so many years of working with chemicals, his sense of smell and taste had been blunted, though lately, for some reason, both had become annoyingly acute, and the list of foods to which he was suddenly averse had grown very long. Not true, alas, across the sensory spectrum, the intensity of his orgasms, not to mention their frequency, having radically diminished of late, a piss-poor trade-off.
    “You’re joking. I wish you had another just like it.” Hugh allowed his gaze to fall directly on Noonan now, something he’d been careful not to do since he arrived. “So. How much weight have you lost?”
    “Pounds, I couldn’t tell you. A couple belt notches.” Three to be precise. “Not all bad. I was getting