By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham Page B

or seven inches long.
    “What the fuck?” Peter says.
    “I can’t believe it” is all Tyler has to offer.
    Uta, Branch, and Carl have arranged themselves like mourners around the canvas. Peter gets up close, squats to survey the damage. It is neither more nor less than a slit, about seven inches, running from a corner of the canvas toward the center. It is surgically precise.
    “How did this happen?” Peter asks.
    “Lost my grip,” Tyler answers. He is not particularly contrite. If anything, he’s peevish—why would the goddamn thing want to get ripped like this?
    “He had a box cutter in his pocket,” Uta says. She’s hanging back. Although she’s perfectly capable of righteous fury when the occasion demands it, this kind of thing is Peter’s job. She’s already thinking about the terms of the insurance coverage.
    “You were taking down the show with a box cutter in your pocket ?”
    “I wasn’t thinking. I just stuck it in my pocket for a second, and I sort of forgot about it.”
    “Right,” Peter says, and is surprised by the calm in his own voice. It seems briefly that this can be made to unhappen, because it was so obviously going to happen. Bette Rice does in fact have cancer, terminal cancer, and Tyler has in fact been walking around with a box cutter in his pocket because Peter refuses to appreciate his assemblages and collages. It’s Peter’s fault, he saw this coming. No, it’s Rex’s fault. Rex and his goddamned endless parade of young geniuses who are invariably slender, tattooed young men, and are never actual geniuses, though Rex continues to insist, continues to “mentor” them, and it’s ruining his career, it’s turning him into a joke.
    Uta says, “It’s one of the ones that didn’t sell.”
    Peter nods. That’s better, of course. But there’s nothing good about word going out that art gets destroyed on Peter’s premises.
    Tyler says, “Man, I’m really sorry.”
    Peter nods again. Yelling won’t help. And really, he can’t fire Tyler on the spot. The show has to come down today.
    “Get back to work,” Peter says quietly. “Try to remember not to put anything sharp in your pockets.”
    He’s going to fucking kill Rex. Lecherous old queen.
    Uta says, “Let’s take this one to the back.”
    Peter, however, is not quite ready to abandon the corpse. Cautiously, very very gently, he slips his finger under the waxy paper, and lifts it.
    All Peter can see is a triangle of clotted color. A swirl of ochre dotted with black.
    Carefully, he fingers the paper another fraction of an inch away from the canvas.
    “Peter , ” Uta cries.
    It’s impossible to know for sure, but what Peter thinks he sees is a standard-issue abstract, clumsily painted. Student work.
    That’s what’s under the sealed, pristine wrapping? That’s the shrouded relic?
    Peter’s stomach lurches. What the fuck? Is he . . . yeah, he’s going to . . .
    He retches. By the time he’s standing his mouth has already filled with vomit, but he makes it to the bathroom, where he expels it into the toilet and then stands, heaving, as it comes up again, and again.
    Uta stands behind him. “Darling,” she says.
    “I’m okay. You don’t have to see this.”
    “Fuck off, I’ll be changing your diapers one day. It’s not the worst thing in the world. You know we’re covered.”
    Peter still leans over the toilet bowl. Is it over? Hard to tell.
    “It’s not the fucking painting. I don’t know, I’ve been queasy for a while. Maybe the turkey was a little off.”
    “Go home.”
    “No way.”
    “Come back later if you want to. Go home now, for an hour, even. I’ll keep an eye on the idiots out there.”
    “Maybe for an hour.”
    “Absolutely for an hour.”
    All right, then. He’s strangely embarrassed by having to walk past Tyler and his assistants—some vague sense of defeat. The young and destructive have won this one; the old guy, grown delicate, saw the carnage and fell on his sword.
    He