DYING TO KILL YOU
Fredrick Marsh was livid when he got to the gallery and Darren showed him the Sunday paper with the picture of Craig Lendskip holding up one of his twine sculptures. The caption underneath read, “One of the dynamic duo from The Cutting Edge Gallery.” The article went on ad nauseum about Yellowhorse and Lendskip, and how they were the toast of Basel. A full shot of the booth was also printed in the article, with no Marsh painting in sight. The interview with Bernard went into great detail about the show and its ramifications for his two wunderkinds and how they were exclusively at The Cutting Edge. Also, how hard it was for him to keep any inventory and that prices were on the rise. Darren chortled, “That Bernard, what a salesman. Craig and Willard are gonna be even hotter now.”
That night at home, Fredrick re-read the article for the umpteenth time. “No fucking mention of me!” screamed Fredrick Marsh as he crumpled up the paper and stomped on it with his bare foot. He was done being patient, done listening to Bernard Phillips. Power always wins out. Fredrick’s dad had taught him that, since nobody has more power than a doctor who can orchestrate life and death. “Warhol, you’re about to get some company. I hope you like funky ball and twine sculptures, because there are not going to be any more produced here on planet Earth. It’s payback time for you stealing my leather portfolio, Lendskip. You go first. That’s for getting your photo in The New York Times.”
Fredrick Marsh’s studio was on the same floor as the studios of the two wunderkinds, and he had access to both Yellowhorse’s and Lendskip’s work spaces.
Marsh may have been insane, but he was also extremely smart. He had known somewhere in his dark soul that it would probably be only a matter of time before he would tire of his fellow press-hogging gallery mates, and have to rid them from his exhibit space.
To kill is easy. To kill and not get caught is harder. The naïve Lendskip appeared to be the easier of the two to dispose of. Besides, to kill two well-known artists at once might be suspicious and it was Lendskip’s photo that had tripped Fredrick’s switch. To get rid of Craig required finding a weak area in his lifestyle and Marsh knew what it was. He could thank The New York Times again for helping him in his plan. James W. Lewis had just been released from the New York penitentiary after serving 13 years of a 20-year sentence for extortion. Mr. Lewis was apparently not the actual perpetrator of what the F.B.I. called TYMURS, the Tylenol tampering case. Lewis figured he could make some quick bucks by demanding one million dollars for the seven deaths that had occurred secondary to tampering with Tylenol in the Chicago area in 1982. The unsuspecting victims all ingested poisoned Tylenol that had been laced with potassium cyanide. The perpetrator had never been caught, even after Johnson & Johnson had offered a $100K reward. It was big news in the medical world, something Fredrick remembered well. Every medical student from the early eighties knew the symptoms of cyanide poisoning and how to treat the almost-always fatal condition. Fredrick had to act quickly as the artists would be back soon.
The plane from Basel, Switzerland, arrived on time early on the morning of August 7, 1996. Craig Lendskip was ready to get to work. Unlike his comrades who had slept during the red-eye flight, Craig had been drawing out what would be his most ambitious sculpture to date. It would take months to finish. It wasn’t a project like Francis Johnson’s, the record holder of twine, but it was ambitious. Craig was biting at the bit to get to work and feel his twine.
Returning to his New York studio and smelling the musky scent that seemed to permeate the thousands of small rolls of twine carefully stored in bins throughout the space rejuvenated Craig from his long flight.
Rows of plastic green tubs were lined up along the studio’s west wall. Each one had a black number designating the approximate yarn size and whether the twine had been worked or not. When a bin was finally full of completely processed yarn, Craig would move it to the east side of the studio and cover it with a blue top which meant it was ready to be used. When two to three bins had accumulated on the finished side of the studio it signaled that there was finally enough twine prepared to start producing sculpture.
The procedure was very similar to Yellowhorse’s grandmother’s weaving process. All the old grandmother weavers made their own wool from raising the sheep, shearing, cleaning, carding, and finally hand-spinning the wool on a traditional spindle. Wool preparation took hundreds of hours and represented forty percent of the entire time required to make one weaving. Willard’s grandmother would never start a rug until she thought she had spun enough wool. Once all the wool was prepared, she could then begin weaving her rug.
Lendskip was no different. He had to have all the yarn spun before he could start the actual sculpture process. Sculpture drawings freshly done from the long plane trip had determined the approximate amount of finished twine he would need for his this ambitious sculpture.
His usual routine was to start with the last bin of yarn, which would be processed until it was perfect. He figured he had three weeks of spinning to do. The time could vary depending on the quality of the twine. Since all his twine came from donations of various fans, sometimes the yarn quality was better than expected and this allowed him to move along quickly. If he started working this morning, Craig figured he might finish 10 percent of a bin by late afternoon.
The yarn felt good to touch again. He had worked a little in Basel, but he had not brought much twine and the constant barrage of collectors wanting to talk to him about his sculpture had kept him from any meaningful work. It was the longest he had gone without working the twine since he was 15. The yarn texture was like an old lover’s skin. It touched easily and the first twist running his tongue reminded him of Mr. Johnson’s barn, even if the taste was a bit funny. Craig figured it really had been too long since working with his precious yarn as the twine’s aroma also smelled slightly foreign, an odd sensation to the man who had manipulated a thousand miles of twine.
As Craig went to pull the next skein of twine out of the bin, he felt an extreme weakness and his head started to spin. His last thought before he died was of sitting next to Mr. Johnson’s huge ball of twine and smiling at its image.
Death is never expected, even in the very old, but in a 30-year-old man in apparent good health whose photograph also happens to have just been published in The New York Times, there were a lot of questions to answer.
Willard Yellowhorse had found Craig’s body the next day. He was sprawled out on the floor with his hand still clutching the twine he had just finished licking, a semi-permanent smile on his now tetanic face.
Yellowhorse had seen death before. Gallup, New Mexico, has the unenviable reputation of having one of the highest rates of people dying of weather exposure in the country. It’s not that Gallup is the coldest place on earth, though in the winter with its strong winds it can easily get below zero. The serious problem Navajos have is with alcohol. Too many Navajos are afflicted by the horrible burdens of alcoholism and poverty. The combination leads to numerous deaths, secondary to exposure in the winter. Getting drunk and then trying to find a 20-mile ride home at night after the bars close can be a death sentence. Willard had seen enough dead drunks growing up. They all looked the same. A blank stare into space and pure whiteness from the lack of oxygenated blood.
Craig Lendskip was dead. Willard recognized it when he saw him and didn’t want to feel what he knew would be cold skin. The only thing missing was a pure white color. His complexion was more a pink shade; something Willard assumed must be common to bilagaanas when they die. Little did he know that the abnormal coloration was due to the cyanide poisoning courtesy of Fredrick Marsh who had laced it on Craig’s twine.
The thought of his best bilagaana friend, his studio mate and colleague, dying so suddenly was life shattering. The pain was intensified because of the great trip they had just had together in Basel. The autopsy would classify the death as accidental, secondary to cyanide poisoning that was found in a few of the skeins of twine. Since Lendskip used twine from numerous sources, almost all of it being reused, it was most likely that some of the old twine had come from a foreign source like a chemical company and was contaminated with cyanide. Just a fluke poisoning. Lendskip never used commercial yarn. He simply gathered it from wherever. In fact, because he was known as “the twine guy,” often strangers would simply leave their old used twine off in front of the building so Lendskip could turn it into art. It felt good for all involved. They recycled their waste into beautiful expensive sculptures. He had used old twine his entire career. It was clear he had licked the contaminated twine, with the unfortunate fate of getting poisoned. Back in the mid-nineties, the world was not as paranoid a place as it would become after 9/11.
The police checked with those who knew him in Darwin, Minnesota, to see if the locals would confirm that Francis Johnson had the same twine-processing method. Originally Johnson had used his teeth to strip twine, but this had ruined his front teeth and he was forced to drink liquids out of the side of his mouth due to the open nerve endings in his teeth. He taught Craig to use his tongue instead.
Everyone bought the story except Bernard Phillips. The day Craig’s body was found, Bernard had shown up to work early. But Fredrick Marsh was already waiting for him at the door. Fredrick wanted to see Bernard’s reaction when he heard the news. He had a paper folded in his lap—that fateful Sunday New York Times. Sally Smith, Bernard’s longtime assistant, was waiting for him to come in, too. She was obviously disturbed, visible shaking: “Bernard, I have some terrible news. Craig Lendskip was found dead this morning by Willard.” Bernard quickly looked over at Marsh, who was drinking a Mountain Dew with a shit-eating grin on his face, The Times bouncing up and down on his legs. Bernard knew.
“Sally, would you mind excusing yourself. I need to talk with Fredrick in private,” Bernard said. Sally left, sobbing.
“Yeah, tough break for the kid. He was just starting to make it big. I saw the big write-up in The Times. Nice picture of the lad, too bad it’s his last. I’ll miss him around here.” Marsh sipped at his Mountain Dew and fanned himself with the newspaper after giving his insincere condolences.
Bernard snapped back, “I wonder what could have happened to him, Fredrick? I hope the autopsy doesn’t show any foul play. It would be a shame if his career was ruined by some stupid stunt.”
“I would highly doubt it, Bernard. Just probably some weird accident, something we will never be able to determine exactly. You know this kind of shit occurs all the time. It wouldn’t surprise me if we see it again.”
The thought of what Marsh might be planning next sent a cold shiver up Bernard’s spine. Marsh was pissed about the news coverage from Basel, and Bernard knew it. Bernard had been worried about this, but he’d hoped it was just paranoia on his part. He picked his words carefully now: “Fredrick, tragedies like this can happen. But somehow it always happens to my artists, doesn’t it? It would be a real loss if anyone else were to accidentally die. I would hate to see that.”
“Yes, you’re down to only two great artists, and only one of them has the capital backing and name on the lease, so I’m sure it would be horrible if I were to die. My guess is if someone were to go next, it would be Yellowhorse. Wouldn’t you say?”
“I really don’t know how to answer that question,” Bernard replied. “I would hate to see our gallery lose one of its most expensive artists, who is so important economically.”
“That’s true,” Fredrick countered, “but don’t forget your `Paint by Numbersʹ theory. The dead guys are worth a lot more. You will just have to triple the price of those pieces you still have. I know you own a lot of Yellowhorse’s work and I would expect we would be fine.”
Bernard sighed, “Yes, Fredrick, I guess you’re right. The economics of death are in our favor. I’m very sad to see my sweet Lendskip’s passing, but business is business and I better triple the prices on the few sculptures I have left in my vault. It’s a shame I didn’t see this coming. I could have saved a few more Lendskip sculptures before his untimely demise. You know, Fredrick, they would have brought a pretty penny in today’s deceased contemporary art market. I have a waiting list of 50 clients already. Imagine what it will become now that he’s gone.”
“In the future I will make sure you get some advance warning….” Fredrick started laughing, a deep disturbing laughter made by a very unbalanced person.