me. And she gives off something Mary Poppins doesn’t—I don’t know what you want to call it, but it’s likely to get her into big trouble. I guess it already has.”
“I’ve noticed. How old is she, anyway? She seems like a kid.”
“She says she’s twenty-four. Sure doesn’t look it. Think you can help her?”
“Maybe. If I can figure out what her problem is.”
I asked Jilly how she had met Sandy Smollett.
“Stew Langham brought her here to pose.”
“Stewart Langham? Is he still alive?”
Stewart Langham was one of those artists, like Edward Hopper and Reginald Marsh, who had painted America, and specifically New York, the way it was between the wars. Instead of trying to be modernists, they made paintings and prints of the things that made America modern—skyscrapers, streamlined locomotives, subways, urban crowds and urban loneliness, and the bittersweet sexuality of lonely urban women. All three of them had painted burlesque subjects, and it would be a toss-up between Marsh and Langham as to which of them had been most prolific as a portrayer of burlecue queens.
“Stew’s not even that old,” said Jilly. “Seventy-five or seventy-six. Sharp as a tack. I hear the Whitney’s giving him a retrospective. He has one of those fantastic Beaux-Arts studios on 67th Street, off Central Park West.”
“You think he found Sandy at the strip club?”
“That’s what he told me. He still goes to those places all the time. He’s taken me along a couple of times.”
“Would he talk to me?”
“About Sandy? If I tell him you’re kosher.”
“Would you do that? If I’m going to try to help Sandy, the more I know the better. And the sooner the better.”
Jilly walked over to a wall phone and dialed. She spoke to someone for a couple of minutes, then hung up and beckoned me over.
“He asks if you could stop by now. Don’t forget to take Sandy’s things. And take good care of her.”
SIX
Feeling conspicuous, thanks to the pink overnight case, I got off the subway at Lincoln Center, found a pay phone, and called Sandy Smollett. She picked up on the first ring. I could hear the TV in the background.
“Are you okay?” she said, her voice anxious.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know. I’m very nervous.”
“I thought you were watching the game.”
“That’s what’s making me nervous. I get nervous when I’m watching. It’s a very close game. The Mets are winning by one. Donn Glendening . . .”
“Clendenon.”
“Anyway—he hit a home run. Someone called Tom Terrific is pitching.”
I told her I’d picked up her clothes from Jilly’s.
“I’ll drop them off soon, though I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay.”
“You went to Jilly’s? Thank you so much!”
The sincerity was overwhelming, but I couldn’t think of anything more to say and I didn’t want to mention Stewart Langham until I knew what I might find at his studio. It was located in a grand neo-Gothic pile built as a colony for well-heeled artists and loaded art-world groupies. It was so grand, in fact, that the studios there were referred to as “ateliers.” Stewart Langham had left my name with the flunky downstairs and I was immediately whisked up to the master’s floor. I was greeted by a smallish man with cropped white hair and a ruddy complexion, toffed-up in a lovat tweed suit with a mustard-colored shirt and an emerald-green cravat the exact shade of a T-shirt I had admired on Pete Townshend one Sunday night at Fillmore East. It looked as if Langham was on his way to spend a country weekend with Scott and Zelda. The ensemble was completed with blue suede loafers that seemed incongruous, but which I would not have stepped on for the world.
He invited me in. I found myself in an interior packed with art that would have passed muster in any halfway-decent museum. The walls were hung with paintings by Hopper, Marsh, John Sloan, Isabel Bishop, Stuart Davis, Ben Shahn, Arthur Dove,
“I’ve noticed. How old is she, anyway? She seems like a kid.”
“She says she’s twenty-four. Sure doesn’t look it. Think you can help her?”
“Maybe. If I can figure out what her problem is.”
I asked Jilly how she had met Sandy Smollett.
“Stew Langham brought her here to pose.”
“Stewart Langham? Is he still alive?”
Stewart Langham was one of those artists, like Edward Hopper and Reginald Marsh, who had painted America, and specifically New York, the way it was between the wars. Instead of trying to be modernists, they made paintings and prints of the things that made America modern—skyscrapers, streamlined locomotives, subways, urban crowds and urban loneliness, and the bittersweet sexuality of lonely urban women. All three of them had painted burlesque subjects, and it would be a toss-up between Marsh and Langham as to which of them had been most prolific as a portrayer of burlecue queens.
“Stew’s not even that old,” said Jilly. “Seventy-five or seventy-six. Sharp as a tack. I hear the Whitney’s giving him a retrospective. He has one of those fantastic Beaux-Arts studios on 67th Street, off Central Park West.”
“You think he found Sandy at the strip club?”
“That’s what he told me. He still goes to those places all the time. He’s taken me along a couple of times.”
“Would he talk to me?”
“About Sandy? If I tell him you’re kosher.”
“Would you do that? If I’m going to try to help Sandy, the more I know the better. And the sooner the better.”
Jilly walked over to a wall phone and dialed. She spoke to someone for a couple of minutes, then hung up and beckoned me over.
“He asks if you could stop by now. Don’t forget to take Sandy’s things. And take good care of her.”
SIX
Feeling conspicuous, thanks to the pink overnight case, I got off the subway at Lincoln Center, found a pay phone, and called Sandy Smollett. She picked up on the first ring. I could hear the TV in the background.
“Are you okay?” she said, her voice anxious.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know. I’m very nervous.”
“I thought you were watching the game.”
“That’s what’s making me nervous. I get nervous when I’m watching. It’s a very close game. The Mets are winning by one. Donn Glendening . . .”
“Clendenon.”
“Anyway—he hit a home run. Someone called Tom Terrific is pitching.”
I told her I’d picked up her clothes from Jilly’s.
“I’ll drop them off soon, though I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay.”
“You went to Jilly’s? Thank you so much!”
The sincerity was overwhelming, but I couldn’t think of anything more to say and I didn’t want to mention Stewart Langham until I knew what I might find at his studio. It was located in a grand neo-Gothic pile built as a colony for well-heeled artists and loaded art-world groupies. It was so grand, in fact, that the studios there were referred to as “ateliers.” Stewart Langham had left my name with the flunky downstairs and I was immediately whisked up to the master’s floor. I was greeted by a smallish man with cropped white hair and a ruddy complexion, toffed-up in a lovat tweed suit with a mustard-colored shirt and an emerald-green cravat the exact shade of a T-shirt I had admired on Pete Townshend one Sunday night at Fillmore East. It looked as if Langham was on his way to spend a country weekend with Scott and Zelda. The ensemble was completed with blue suede loafers that seemed incongruous, but which I would not have stepped on for the world.
He invited me in. I found myself in an interior packed with art that would have passed muster in any halfway-decent museum. The walls were hung with paintings by Hopper, Marsh, John Sloan, Isabel Bishop, Stuart Davis, Ben Shahn, Arthur Dove,
Similar Books
