“I wonder,” Kerrigan murmured. Then, through his teeth, “Go on, get inside. Get the hell inside.”
Mooney opened the door. They came into a room where a lot of people were sleeping. There weren’t enough beds and the floor was a jumble of sleeping grownups and children. Kerrigan stayed close behind Mooney, treading carefully to avoid stepping on the sleepers on the floor. They made their way across the room and went into another room where there were more sleepers. For an instant Kerrigan forgot about Mooney and he was wondering how many families lived in this dump. Goddamn them, he thought, they don’t hafta live like this. At least they can keep the place clean. But then his mind aimed again at Mooney as he saw the sign painter turning toward the stairway. And he thought, Be careful now, it might happen when we’re halfway up the stairs.
But nothing happened. Mooney didn’t even look back. They came up on the second floor and went down a very narrow hall. The ceiling was low and there wasn’t much air. It seemed there was hardly any air at all.
He followed Mooney into a room. It was a tiny room and there was no furniture. The only thing he saw was a mattress on the floor. But then Mooney switched on the light, and other objects came into view.
There was a large vase, almost four feet high. It was some kind of glazed stone and was cracked in many places and looked very old. Kerrigan looked to see what was in it and he saw it was filled with cigarette stubs and ashes. Next to the vase there was a stack of large rough-surfaced paper used for water-color paintings. And then he saw the jars of paint, the little tubes, and the brushes. Paint brushes of various sizes were scattered all over the room. He figured there must be at least a hundred brushes in here. He came closer to the stack of papers and lifted the edges and saw that some of the sheets hadn’t been used. But the others were all water-color landscapes and still lifes and a few portraits. And that was what he had come here to see. It was the tangible proof that Mooney hadn’t been lying.
“Well,” he said quietly, “you got the paintings here, all right.”
He waited for a reply. There was no reply. He turned slowly to look at Mooney, who stood facing the wall on the other side of the room. Then there was no sound in the room, not even the sound of breathing.
They were both looking at the wall and what was on the wall.
It was a rather large water color on thick board paper. It was the only painting on any of the walls. The dominant color was the yellow-gray background for the greenish-gray of her face and the cocoa-gray-yellow of her hair. It was just the head and neck and shoulders against the background. The head was slightly lowered and there wasn’t much expression on the face and it was merely the portrait of a very thin girl with long hair, not much to look at, really. But she was alive there on the wall. She seemed to be living and breathing and fully conscious of what she was and who she was. She was Catherine Kerrigan.
“I didn’t want you to see it,” Mooney said. “I tried to tell you.”