moment you were out in the dark on the hard cobble-stone, a thuggish figure moving toward you through the shadows, the ill aroma of the slaughterhouses wafting around you on a breeze from the
Hudson. The next you were transported into a Turkish vizier's court. In his painting and his taste, Shenz was a Romantic, a Pre-Raphaelite with a great belief in the pertinence of the mythological and a strong allegiance to the exotic. Jasmine incense smoldered in the gaping mouth of a brass dragon. Thick Persian carpets covered the floors like flowering beds of Page 21
mandaias, and the tapestries that hung upon the walls pictured beasts and birds and Eastern beauties cavorting through forests of trees whose crisscrossing branches made a design as intricate as lace. The furniture, with overstuffed cushions, appeared to have no legs at all but to float a few inches above the floor.
We sat facing each other in exceedingly low, wide chairs that required one to sit cross-legged like a swami. Shenz took a puff of his opium-laced cigarette, its blue fog mixing with the brass dragon's exhalations and caus-ing my eyes to water. With his pointed beard and trim mustache, those eyebrows that curled up in points at the ends, and a paisley satin robe, he looked for all the world like a modern-day Mephistopheles about to broker a deal.
"The last I saw of you, Piambo, was your back as you fled from Reed's," he said, smiling.
"I had cause for alarm," I said. "The missus, as she mimicked kissing my cheek, whispered to me that she wished for me to die."
He laughed out loud. "True?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Good God, my boy, another satisfied customer."
"Shenz," I said, 'I can't believe you haven't been robbed yet. Don't your neighbors know that you are liv-ing here like Mani in his pleasure garden?"
"Certainly," he said, "but my house is protected, and I have free passage in Hell's Kitchen."
"Do they fear your palette knife?" I asked.
"Precisely," he said. "Do you know the name Dutch Heinrichs?"
"I've read it in the newspapers," I said. "He's the head hooligan, isn't he?"
"He controls the most powerful gang in the area, if not the city. Back in the seventies, I did a portrait of him. He had begun fantasizing about his significance in the scheme of things and decided that a record of his features would be an important artifact for future historians.
Burne-Jones himself would be proud of the job I did. I depicted the seasoned criminal as a glowing saint in an ultramarine and mauve cityscape, a transcendent martyr of the mean streets."
"And he actually paid you?" I asked.
"Certainly, he paid me in protection. He was a bit iras-cible as a subject, often intoxicated, couldn't
sit still for too long. But I tell you, when his fellows saw what I could do with a brush, they were in awe.
Art, you would think, might be the last thing that could impress them, but it did. They came to think of me as some sort of magician. Last winter I did a nice little portrait of the wife of the boss of the Dead
Rabbits gang."
"You're pulling my leg," I said.
"Not at all," said Shenz. "Do I look like a man who fears for his safety?"
I shook my head and sighed in exasperation.
"There's no difference between this world and the world of Fifth Avenue," he said. "Life is full of black-guards. Some wear fine suits and bilk great masses of humanity; some have shoes with gaping holes and break into warehouses. Just remind yourself of the scurrilous thieves of Tammany Hall. The only difference between there and here is that their crimes were publicly sanc-tioned and the ones on this side of town have been deemed reprehensible."
"There is less murder on Fifth Avenue," I said.
"Think of all those poor bastards and their living deaths laboring away in one of Reed's shoe mills.
It's all a matter of perspective."
"I'm still not sure I believe you," I said.
"As you like," he said, and chuckled.
Page 22
"But now have something to tell that you will cer-tainly doubt the
Hudson. The next you were transported into a Turkish vizier's court. In his painting and his taste, Shenz was a Romantic, a Pre-Raphaelite with a great belief in the pertinence of the mythological and a strong allegiance to the exotic. Jasmine incense smoldered in the gaping mouth of a brass dragon. Thick Persian carpets covered the floors like flowering beds of Page 21
mandaias, and the tapestries that hung upon the walls pictured beasts and birds and Eastern beauties cavorting through forests of trees whose crisscrossing branches made a design as intricate as lace. The furniture, with overstuffed cushions, appeared to have no legs at all but to float a few inches above the floor.
We sat facing each other in exceedingly low, wide chairs that required one to sit cross-legged like a swami. Shenz took a puff of his opium-laced cigarette, its blue fog mixing with the brass dragon's exhalations and caus-ing my eyes to water. With his pointed beard and trim mustache, those eyebrows that curled up in points at the ends, and a paisley satin robe, he looked for all the world like a modern-day Mephistopheles about to broker a deal.
"The last I saw of you, Piambo, was your back as you fled from Reed's," he said, smiling.
"I had cause for alarm," I said. "The missus, as she mimicked kissing my cheek, whispered to me that she wished for me to die."
He laughed out loud. "True?" he asked.
I nodded.
"Good God, my boy, another satisfied customer."
"Shenz," I said, 'I can't believe you haven't been robbed yet. Don't your neighbors know that you are liv-ing here like Mani in his pleasure garden?"
"Certainly," he said, "but my house is protected, and I have free passage in Hell's Kitchen."
"Do they fear your palette knife?" I asked.
"Precisely," he said. "Do you know the name Dutch Heinrichs?"
"I've read it in the newspapers," I said. "He's the head hooligan, isn't he?"
"He controls the most powerful gang in the area, if not the city. Back in the seventies, I did a portrait of him. He had begun fantasizing about his significance in the scheme of things and decided that a record of his features would be an important artifact for future historians.
Burne-Jones himself would be proud of the job I did. I depicted the seasoned criminal as a glowing saint in an ultramarine and mauve cityscape, a transcendent martyr of the mean streets."
"And he actually paid you?" I asked.
"Certainly, he paid me in protection. He was a bit iras-cible as a subject, often intoxicated, couldn't
sit still for too long. But I tell you, when his fellows saw what I could do with a brush, they were in awe.
Art, you would think, might be the last thing that could impress them, but it did. They came to think of me as some sort of magician. Last winter I did a nice little portrait of the wife of the boss of the Dead
Rabbits gang."
"You're pulling my leg," I said.
"Not at all," said Shenz. "Do I look like a man who fears for his safety?"
I shook my head and sighed in exasperation.
"There's no difference between this world and the world of Fifth Avenue," he said. "Life is full of black-guards. Some wear fine suits and bilk great masses of humanity; some have shoes with gaping holes and break into warehouses. Just remind yourself of the scurrilous thieves of Tammany Hall. The only difference between there and here is that their crimes were publicly sanc-tioned and the ones on this side of town have been deemed reprehensible."
"There is less murder on Fifth Avenue," I said.
"Think of all those poor bastards and their living deaths laboring away in one of Reed's shoe mills.
It's all a matter of perspective."
"I'm still not sure I believe you," I said.
"As you like," he said, and chuckled.
Page 22
"But now have something to tell that you will cer-tainly doubt the
Similar Books
