“They confiscated a round of Beaufort d’Été,” Sammy said, shooting a hard glare at the guard. “I told them the first thing that dies in a place like this is the palate. Fucking barbarians.”
They talked awhile, a little about the market, the demand for his work so scaling Sammy said Grace Number One would likely fetch seven figures. Patch stared impassive, tuned him out when he spoke of securing Charlotte’s future, because Patch knew between Misty and her grandmother Charlotte would want for nothing.
“How is she?” Patch said.
Sammy sobered a little, glanced around at the other men, most sitting with families trying to cling to the last strands, the loss written in the smiles of children old enough to realize. “She’s…she started painting again.”
“Yeah?”
“Nothing much, maybe just getting a feel. Wasted a couple canvases.”
“Thank you, Sam.”
Sammy waved a hand. “The tab.”
“I need a favor.”
“Anything,” Sammy said.
“There’s a box in the attic of the Mad House. The only belongings I have from when I was a kid. Inside there’s a copy of Playboy. June 1965.”
“You know porn has come a long way—”
This time Patch held up a hand.
Sammy lowered his voice. “I’ve got a collection that would—”
“Stop.”
They sat awhile.
And then Sammy loosened the collar of his Oxford shirt. And he told Patch that Norma had died that morning.
“Saint—”
Sammy smiled, shook his head.
“Will you tell her…”
“Of course,” Sammy said.
Patch watched a little girl sat opposite her father, drawing something, gripping a crayon with a tight fist and streaking her colors. “Just tell her I…”
“I will.”
Sammy stood and moved to leave him.
“You never asked,” Patch said.
Sammy had made the trip a dozen times, claimed he had business that way, but Patch knew his network did not extend to those lost acres. He had come to the arraignment, sat at the back and sipped from the sterling silver flask, his hands shaking a little as the sentence was read. He wrote sometimes, never more than a quote, often Oscar Wilde and his creeping common sense. Other times he sent postcards of a single color, always a shade Patch had used in his work. Patch kept them in a large tobacco tin Tug had given him. Sammy was not mawkish enough to say that he missed him, that he missed sitting in contented silence on the small balcony, sipping their whisky together and watching the workings of Monta Clare.
“You never asked why I did it,” Patch said.
Sammy buried his hands deep in the pockets of his velvet blazer and straightened his rabbit felt hat. “I never needed to.”