The Juror Read Online Free PDF Page B

gives her the eye, and she finds herself giving it right back. After he passes she drags her feet and even considers
     taking a quick look behind her—just to see if
he
’s looking back.
    But tremors like these fly quickly.
    The real ache hits her when she goes by a toy store for rich kids and gets a glimpse of a complex mechanical dragon. A blast
     of smoke from its blue-green nostrils. To possess such a creature, Oliver would sign over his soul. She almost veers to go
     inside to ask the price. Almost goes
seeking
that chastisement.
    If you have to ask, lady, we don’t mind humiliating you.
    But she averts her eyes and picks up her stride, and by the time she gets to Prince Street she’s forgotten the toy, she’s
     forgotten the lovers and the looker, she’s carefree and playing hooky again. She crosses the street, then turns into a big
     iron loft building. She breezes up to the third floor, to Inez Gazzaraga’s gallery. Where Annie has three pieces on one wall
     of the front room, part of a group show called
Hermetic Visions.
    She nods to Lainie, the intern, at the desk, and heads for Inez’s office in the back.
    But a flutter of red troubles the edge of her vision. She stops.
    Over by her pieces, her Grope Boxes on the wall, a smattering of red spots. Her heart takes a bound. She shuts her eyes.
    No. Can’t be. Didn’t see what I thought I saw.
    She opens her eyes again. Beside each of the boxes is a small red disk. Her eyes move from one to the other. Three disks in
     all. Not equivocal half disks, not
this piece is perhaps spoken for.
But full flaming red suns.
    Sold.
    Follow the bouncing red ball and sing along:
“Sold! Sold! Sold!”
    The song clanging sweetly in her head in time to the rushing of her blood till she hears Lainie laughing behind her, and then
     Inez comes lumbering out of her office and says into her other ear, “So you made a fuckin sale. About time, too. Come.”
    She leads Annie into her office.
    “His name is Zach Lyde.” Inez lights a cigarette, wheezes into a hanky and wipes her chin. She leans back in her chair. She
     was once a
Vogue
model. She was the
belle dame sans merci
of beat poets and abstract expressionists. Now she’s two hundred eighty pounds and tough-skinned and nasty when she needs
     to be. In her shaggy quack of a voice, she tells Annie, “I’ve seen him around, I’ve heard stories. He’s respected. He’s a
     bit, I don’t know, he’s very polite but he intimidates people, know what I mean? He
knows
his shit. He’s sweet on some of the minimalists. Marden. Some Neo-Geo. Alice Aycock. Lately he’s done some Christy Rupp.
     He does
not
care for the big-dick marble cowboys. They say he’s got a fairly brilliant collection for himself, but mostly he buys for
     friends. I mean for big collectors, honey. Big big big shits.”
    “Like?”
    “People you wouldn’t have heard of.”
    “But if they’re such big collectors—”
    Inez frowns. She looks down at the yellow notebook on her desk.
    “SatYuske? Heard of
him?
”
    “No.”
    “Yoshida Yasei?”
    Annie shakes her head.
    Says Inez, “Well, OK, how about the ever-popular MorShoichi?”
    “I’m getting the drift,” says Annie. “My stuff’s going to Japan?”
    Inez shrugs. “I can’t say for sure. These are just names he mentioned.”
    “You didn’t find out where my—”
    “I asked him, he gave me
vague.
You know? Like, ’Well, I have to do some exploring. Find the right home.’ That sort of runaround—”
    “And that was OK?” Annie asks. “That was good enough for you?”
    “Well, that and a check for twenty-four thousand dollars—of which twelve is yours. Yes. That was plenty.”
    Inez grins. Annie tries to grin back, but the worry is still on her brow.
    Says Inez, “Look, kid, maybe you’re not getting this. You’ve just sold three of your boxes to a
power.
You ought to be squealing like a pig. You ought to be creaming your jeans.”
    “I’m, I’m ecstatic,” says Annie.